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DEDICATED TO THE YOUNG MExN OF AMERICA 



A. B. JOHNSON, 

AUTHOR OF " AN ENCYCLOPEDIA OF INSTRUCTION ; OR, APOLOGUES ANB BREVIAT8 ON MAN 
AND MANNERS." ETC., ETC. 



NEW-YORK: 

DEUBY & JACKSON, 119 NASSAU-STREET. 

Cincinnati : H. W. Derby &. Co. 

1857. 



Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1857, 

By derby & JACKSON, 

In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States, for the 
Southern District of New- York. 



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PREFACE. 



To no people is political knowledge so important as to 
us — each citizen being both sovereign and subject. Our 
duty as subjects, we, like the subjects of other countries, 
are taught by legislative enactments ; but our duty in 
assisting to enact laws and form written constitutions, we 
can learn only by study ; especially as laws desirable for a 
Slate may be fundamentally improper for the Federal Gov- 
ernment. This conflict of proprieties is misunderstood 
universally by foreigners — their pre-existing notions of 
nationalities mystifying our Federal limitations — while 
the same difliculty, existing ratably among ourselves, dis- 
turbs the, fellowship of our thirty millions of inhabitants, 
and endangers the union of our States. The present pub- 
lication discusses most of those governmental peculiari- 
ties that our progress has shown to be disturbing, guiding 
us thus, by a practical detail, to a better understanding of 
our polity than could any treatise on Government, written 
systematically in abstract general propositions. The essays 
assume a partisan guise, because conflicting governmental 
notions are the elements of our party difl^erences ; but the 



IV PREFACE. 

writer was never the disciple of any party, and hence never 
wrote for victory, but for the ehcitation of truth, while 
much in the articles that seeins partisan, the author wrote 
before the advocated tenets were adopted by any party. 
Territorial self-government, for instance, on which Mr. 
Buchanan has been elected President, is advocated in the 
piece entitled " The Wilmot Proviso," but the author pub- 
lished it under his own signature, August 24th, 1847, be- 
ing several months before the first advocacy of the princi- 
ple by Senators Cass and Dickinson, whose conspicuous 
position arrested thereto partisan attention. The pieces 
are reprinted substantially as they were originally publish- 
ed in various periodicals, when the respective topics engaged 
public attention ; but they are arranged in an order dicta- 
ted by the topics, the papers relating to the General Gov- 
ernment being placed before those relating to the State 
and the Miscellaneous articles being grouped together after 
the Political ; and they are all now respectfully dedicated 
to the young men of America as aids to reflection. 

Utica, New- York, 1857. 



CONTENT !^^ 



PART I. 

OF THE GENERAL GOVERNMENT. 

CHAPTER I. 

The Negro Question and Territorial Self-Government. 

Page 

The Wilmot Proviso 9 

The Slavery Question 13 

Reserved Rights of American Citizens 20 

The Kansas-Nebraska Question 24 

The Kansas-Nebraska Question — concluded 28 

CHAPTER 11. 

Of the Nature of our Confederacy. 

The Philosophy of the Union; or, the Principles of its Cohe- 

siveness 32 

Our Political Disorders and their Remedy 48 

The Principles of American Liberty 59 

Veto Power of the President 65 

The President's Constitutional Advisers 71 

Power of Congress over Public Improvements 72 

The Mode of Selecting a new President 85 



VI CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER III. 

Of the Acquisition of New Territory. 

Page 

The Annexation of Texas 96 

Texas Annexed 103 

CHAPTER IV. 

The Relative Merits of Existing Parties. 

The Anatomy of Politics 107 

Yices of Political Minorities 112 

Merits and Demerits of Existing Parties 119 

The Southern Disunionists 126 

The Clayton-Bulwer Treaty 128 

CHAPTER V. 

Of a United States Bank. 

The United States Bank Controversy 131 

The Bank Panic and Pressure 136 

The Suspension of Specie Payments 149 



PART II. 

OF THE STATE GOVERNMENT. 

CHAPTER I. 

The Constitution. 

Reasons for calling a Convention to revise the existing Con- 
stitution 159 

The Delegates which should be selected to form a State Consti- 
tution 168 

State Debt and Tax Liability 170 

Aristocracy and Nativism 176 

Municipal C orporations 182 

Executive Patronage 188 

Sovereignty of the People 194 



CONTENTS. . VII 

CHAPTER II. 

Of Private Corporations. 

Page 
Legislative History of Corporations in New-York; or, the Pro- 
gress of Liberal Principles 202 

Advantages and Disadvantages of Private Corporations 210 

Duties, Omissions, and Misdoings of Bank Directors 223 

CHAPTER IIL 

Op Sumptuary Legislation. 

The Excise License Question 238 

The Maine Liquor Law 242 

CHAPTER IV. 

Of Public Improvements. 

The Alternative of Borrowing Disadvantageouslj, or Suspend- 
ing the Public Works 246 

The Alternative of Debt or Taxation 249 

The Alternative of a Suspension of Improvements, or an In- 
crease of Debt 251 

The Alternative of Continuing our Debt, or Liquidating it by 

Taxation 259 



PART III. 

MISCELLANY. 

The Almighty Dollar; or. Money as a Motive for Action 255 

Relative Merits of Life Insurance and Savings Banks 263 

Political and Economical Influence of Usury Laws 277 

Present and Prospective Value of Gold 283 

Plan of a New Dictionary 300 

Banking, the Duties of a Banker, and his Personal Requisites 

therefor 309 

Eulogy on a Body C orporate 370 

Review of the Internal Management of a Country Bank 379 

Review of the Philosophy of Joint Stock Banking 388 

Review of Schoolcraft's '' Residence of Thirty Years with the 

Indian Tribes on the American Territories." 403 



PART I. 

OF THE GENERAL GOVERNMENT. 
CHAPTER I. 

THE NEGRO aUESTION AND TERRLTOR[AL SELF-GOVERNMENT, 



THE WILMOT PEOYISO.* 

We hav« all heard that Napoleon relinquished an ar- 
dently desired gratification, because a cobbler would not 
«ell a small piece of ground that was essential to the con- 
templated project : — " Let him keep it,^' said Napoleon, " as a 
monument of the sacredness with which the rights of pro- 
perty are respected in France." 

The same improbable story has been told of every des- 
pot that history has wished to glorify, and the repetition 
evinces that man everywhere honors a respect for personal 
rights. Our State desired a discontinuance of the retail 
traffic in ardent spirits, but our voters said, with Napoleon, 
Let it remain, as a monument of the sacredness with which 
personal freedom is tolerated in New- York. So our State 
abhors slavery, but if Virginia could be despoiled by us of 

* Published August 2Tth, 1847. Senator Dickinson's resolutions on the same sub- 
ject, were oflfered in the United States Senate, December 14th, 1847. Senator Cass's 
Nicholson Letter thereon was published the same December. 

2 



10 THE WILMOT PROVISO. 

a control over her domestic institutions, and compelled to 
abolish slavery, our voters would say, Let it remain, a monu- 
ment of the sacredness with which self-government is re- 
spected in the United States. Slavery when thus viewed is 
not a national reproach, as some people superficially affirm ; 
but the cobbler's hut, which, while it contrasts sadly with the 
other parts of our federal structure, testifies only the more 
unmistakably to the sovereignty of our people in their seve- 
ral communities — sovereign for all purposes, except that 
no community can domineer over even the weakest of its 
confederates. Nor are we just to the citizens of our Union 
when we attribute this liberality to constitutional necessity ; 
we can attribute it with more truth to public sentiment, 
for constitutions in our country are only an embodiment 
of public opinion. Public sentiment, therefore, in favor of 
self-government, is the ultimate reason why our Federal 
Constitution leaves every State to be sovereign over its own 
domestic institutions ; and by the same reason, the people 
of every territory within our Union are morally entitled 
to a like sovereignty, even should the Constitution, by a 
harsh construction, permit such sovereignty to be abridged. 
Praise where you can and censure only where you must, is an 
esteemed precept which Congress ought not to parody, by 
permitting self-government only where they must, and abridg- 
ing it where they can. To a sensitive mind, the helplessness 
of a territory, as contrasted with a State, would be a motive 
for protecting the inhabitants of a territory, rather than for 
depredating on them. Nothing, indeed, would be more de- 
testable than to refuse self-government to our territorial 
offspring, after having rebelled from our parent country to 
obtain the right of self-government for ourselves. In that 
contest England refused to see anything but the ingratitude 
of the colonies in withholding aid from her exhausted treas- 
ury ; so coercionists, in the present question of slavery,. 



THE WILMOT PROVISO. 11 

considei only the ills of slavery, instead of regarding the 
more fundamental issue, that every community is rightfully 
entitled to regulate its own domestic relations. To with- 
hold this right from a territory by reason that the liberty 
may be abused, is an argument as old as oppression, and 
little befitting a nation whose existence depends on the ca- 
pacity of man for self-government, and whose experience 
proves that the dependence is ennobling and safe. More- 
over, if self-government is right ; if to do unto others, as 
we would others should do unto us is our duty ; if the em- 
ployment of evil means is unlawful for the attainment of 
good ends, we are not justified in putting a strait jacket 
upon the freeman who may remove to our territories, nor 
are we responsible to God or man for any consequences 
that may result from the omission. 

But we ar^ told, the North never will permit the acqui- 
sition of territory which shall be able to tolerate slaver}^ 
Nay, all opposition to this fiat is sought to be silenced, by 
an assurance of its universal favor among virtuous people- 
just as women are sometimes seduced in France, by being 
assured that chastity is unfashionable among the polite. 
But may we not hope something better ? — that the North and 
South united will never permit the acquisition of territory 
whose inhabitants, flesh of our flesh, shall enjoy less power 
of self-government than we enjoy ; that the North and 
South united, will demand the neutrality of Congress on 
the disturbing subject of slavery, and that Congress shall 
neither establish it nor prohibit it ? On this common 
ground North and South can both stand ; and if a tree is 
known by its fruits, this common ground, which will pro- 
duce brotherly kindness, tranquillity, and union, is virtuous; 
while the opposite ground is vicious, that will produce geo- 
graphical hatred and national debility. Spurious, indeed, is 



12 THE WILMOT PROVISO. 

the virtue vi^hich consists in voting self-denials on other 
people, and denouncing sins that our position disables us 
from committing. It constitutes the "taxation without re- 
presentation that our fathers pledged their honor to resist ; 
and it is akin to the religious mortifications that the Phari- 
sees placed on ' the shoulders of other men, and received 
therefor the condemnation of the Saviour. Be ours the 
better virtue of meliorating each of us his own State or 
territory, so that our States and territories may provoke 
each other to good works, by good examples rather than 
by coercion^ — as New- York became the exemplar of rail- 
roads and canals, and will become, by her new constitution, 
the exemplar of general legislation, in place of special privi- 
leges that withhold the means of wealth from the poor, 
to make the rich richer. In such ways even slavery may 
in time disappear from our empire. Nor let us be driven 
from this only moral and sure process of melioration, by 
the artifice reprobated by Washington, that the North and 
South are antagonists, and that one must be made the Ire« 
land of our Confederacy, — which Confederacy^we are vaunt- 
ingly told, is so advantageous, that fears of its disruption 
need no longer deter our communities from aggressions on 
each other : — We may eat the forbidden fruit and shall not 
surely die, — we may disregard temperance and revel in in- 
toxication, because we can obtain the means gratis. Nor 
let us be driven into this false position by the sarcasm, that 
a Northern man is dough- faced who will not be controlled 
in his votes by geographical location. Happy is he who 
is^ not dough-faced merely, but dough-hearted, when good 
is sought to be accomplished by evil means ! 

Finally, politicians agitate the most disturbing questions 
with a recklessness that induces Europeans to predict mo» 
mentarily a dissolution of our Confederacy, and induces 



THE SLAVERY QUESTION. 13 

Mexicans =^ to expect an insurrectionary pronunciamento in 
their favor ; for as sportsmen seek game amid dangers, so 
our politicians will climb to the crater of disunion to catch 
abolition votes, or descend towards anarchy to catch anti- 
renters'. To lure the weak, they will stigmatize our sol- 
diers as murderers, and weep over the wickedness of war ; 
and to catch the generous, they will shout praises to the 
military chieftain f who happens to be most successful in 
his onslaughts. Nor need we suppose that such politicians 
are necessarily void of patriotism. They know that the 
virtue and intelligence of our people are sufficient to ren- 
der harmless such otherwise dangerous experiments, and 
the truth of such reliance will be illustrated in the geogra- 
phical agitation which we are considering. It will not dis- 
sever our Union — but not because the South will submit to 
political degradation, but because the people of our Confed- 
eracy know that nothing can be permanent which is not 
just ; and they are virtuous, and will not force upon any of 
our communities an inequality that would be unjust. 



THE SLAVEKY QUESTION. t 

A HATRED of slavery cannot be claimed as the peculiar 
attribute of any party. All men hate it, unless they are 
slaveholders ; and many slaveholders hate it, as witness 
Jefferson, whose 1787 ordinance on the subject Mr. Van 
Buren's supporters desire to enforce — forgetting that the 
ordinance referred to the old Confederation, not to the pre- 
sent Union — a difference we will speak of presently. 

* The United States were then at war with Mexico. t General Taylor, 
t Published August 30th, 1848. 



14 THE SLAVERY QUESTION. 

Mr. Van Buren claims also, " that Congress is as power- 
less to make a slave as to make a king ; as powerless to 
establish slavery, as to establish a monarchy " : — all points 
about which no controversy exists with the supporters of 
Gen. Cass, who insist farther, that when American citizens 
remove into California, they carry with them, as their 
birth-right, a power to legislate for themselves in the mat- 
ter of slavery, as respects its prohibition and its admission ; 
and that any attempt of Congress to deprive our fellow-citi- 
zens of this right of self-legislation is as wrong as the legis- 
lative control over Ireland by the British Parliament ; and 
still more unprincipled in our Congress than in Parliament, 
because such legislation by Congress is without constitu- 
tional authority. Shall we then make Irelands of our ter- 
ritories ? That is the question between Van Buren and 
Cass, — the only question, dodge it who can, by confound- 
ing it with the notion of Mr. Calhoun, (as erroneous as 
Mr. Van Buren's,) that the inhabitants of a territory can- 
not prohibit slavery. This question between Van Buren 
and Cass, our fellow-citizens of Irish extraction must an- 
swer with their votes at the coming election. All of us 
who sympathize with Ireland must answer the same ques- 
tion ; and who will stultify himself by approving in Con- 
gress what he denounces in the British Parliament ? — who 
will vote to control the domestic institutions of California, 
and to prohibit the control thereof by our fellow-citizens 
after they remove thither with their wives and children ? 
— who will vote to retain a thorn in the heart of Congress, 
when it may be plucked thence, and transferred to Califor- 
nia, where it properly belongs, and where it can rankle 
without committing the injury denounced by Washington, 
" of alienating one portion of our country from the rest ?" 

And here we may note why the Confederation ordinance 



THE SLAVERY QUESTION. 15 

of 1787 is unfitted to the existing Union. The Confedera- 
tion was an Association of States ; but the existing Union 
is an association of the people. The Confederacy was formed 
by delegates who acted as ambassadors, and who formed 
*' x4.rticles of confederation and perpetual union between 
the States of New-Hampshire, Massachusetts Bay, &c., 
&c. ;" and which States ratified subsequently the said ar- 
ticles, as a treaty between independent sovereigns ; but the 
existing Union was- established by " We the People," and 
it was not to be obligatory till ratified by the people. 

The two governments differing thus in their origin are 
marked with a corresponding difTerence in their powers. 
The Confederation mentions the people as incidents only of 
the States ; the Constitution mentions the States as inci- 
dents only of the people. The Ordinance of 1787 partook, 
therefore, of the nature of the Confederation. The ordi- 
nance was a species of treaty betw^een tiie sovereigns that 
were parties thereto, and as sovereigns they bound to the 
conditions of th^ ordinance their respective subj'^cts. But 
the citizens of our Union possess rights of their own. 
" We the People," who made our Constitution, delegated 
to Congress certain specific powers only ; and fearing that 
these powers might be construed to include others, " We 
the People '' inserted in the Constitution eight successive 
articles, enumerating what should be excluded But even 
this was not deemed a sufficient security against the known 
aggressive tendency of power, hence ''We the People" 
inserted Article IX., which says, the rights enumerated in 
the said eight articles, " shall not be construed to deny or 
disparage others retained by the people." Still '^ We the 
People "were not quite satisfied. We had recently felt 
that power will forget right, and we were determined to leave 
no opening throuo-h which Congress might steal more 



16 THE SLAVERY QUESTION, 

power over us than we had delegated to them ; hence Ar- 
ticle X. was inserted in the Constitntion ; and it reserves 
to the people all powers — not those merely that had been 
reserved before, but all powers not delegated — except- 
ing only the powers possessed by the States, and the powers 
prohibited to the States. And to make the matter still 
stronger, so that their children should not in after times be 
told that they had lost sofne of their rights by judicial con- 
structions of the Constitution, by long acquiescence, or by 
legislative precedent, '^ We the People," to whom all these 
inventions of usurpation were an old story, inserted in the 
constitution all the modes by which alone the Constitution 
could be altered, and " We the People " made the altera- 
tions as solemn and difficult as possible. Our citizens, there- 
fore, who emigrate from New- York to California, enlarge 
not by such emigration the power over them of Congress. 
Congress possesses no more power over the citizen of Cali- 
fornia than while he was in New- York. If we in New- 
York can meet together and construct a government for 
ourselves, and legislate for ourselves on slavery, we can 
in California, should we all emigrate thither ; and every at- 
tempt of Congress to hinder us is a usurpation — unless 
the hindrance be founded on the constitutional clause which 
empowers Congress " to dispose of and make all needful 
rules and regulations respecting the territory and other 
property," — a clause now admitted to refer to property 
only, and certainly not to citizens in a territory who live 
on their own freehalds. _ Nor is the force of this argument 
altered by what any of the framers of the Constitution 
thought when they framed the Constitution ; or what the 
first Constitutional Congress thought, when, in 1789, it re- 
enacted the Ordinance of 1787 ; — because after all this, say 
in 1790, " We the People"' amended the Constitution^ and 



THE SLAVERY QUESTION. 17 

inserted therein all the articles of personal rights and guaran- 
tees that we have been commenting on, and which effectually 
changed the character of the Constitution to an instrument 
of the strictest possible construction — a change that was 
the precise object of the amendments. 

But the suppression by Congress of slavery involves 
other difficulties than the mooted constitutionality of the 
suppression ; and other than the injustice of prohibiting 
people from legislating for themselves; and other than the 
dissatisfaction which is evinced thereat by the Southern 
States : though these difficulties are grave in their nature, 
and cogent enough, we might have hoped to have with- 
held Congress /rom legislating about slavery in Oregon, 
where the people had already prohibited it — evincing thus 
that even on slavery men contend for triumph more than 
for principle. 

The difficulties alluded to are as follows : — At the organ- 
ization of our Confederacy Europeans predicted its speedy 
dissolution, but they are beginning now to investigate the 
cause of its permanency, and they find the cause in our fed- 
erative machinery, by which all local questions are left to 
the local sovereignties — no powers being exercised by the 
General Government, except such as the States separately 
cannot exercise advantageously for themselves. Germany 
is accordingly new-modelling itself after our pattern, as 
the long sought and just found elixir of national longevity 
and local contentment. To the extent, however, that 
Congress assumes legislation over the domestic concerns 
of any territory, we violate the foregoing vital principle, 
and relapse (like the washed swine) into the slough of con- 
solidation in which lie buried all the great empires that 
since the world began have periodically arisen, burst asun» 
der, and sunk. These consequences are as inherent in con- 

2* 



18 THE SLAVERY QUESTION. 

solidation as sin and death were inherent in disobedience. 
The consequences are not avoidable by any recreancy of 
the South in submitting to injustice, nor by amendments of 
the Constitution which shall legalize in Congress local leg- 
islation. 

Nor let us delude o irselves by supposing we can com- 
pulsorily abolish slavery. Every effort we exert to sup- 
press it, calls into existence a counter effort in others to re- 
tain it. We possess, therefore, no alternative but to retain 
the Union with slavery, or slaveiy without the Union. But 
what force cannot accomplish, forbearance may. Slaves 
were once lawful in New- York, and the writer has owned 
them in Utica. Had our State been pressed to the aboli- 
tion of slavery, by persons whose right of interference she 
denied, slavery might have existed among us now. We are 
accountable to neither God nor the world for the sins of our 
neighbors, and the precept was doubtless promulged to 
enable men to live without the irritation of interference 
with each other's domestic arrangements. In opposition, 
however, to this contrivance of God — and which He has 
impressed on our feelings, and on our muscles, so that a 
man's limb, when out of joint, can scarcely be righted by 
the force of many men — abolition interference is pursued 
among us as a trade ; by newspapers for money,- and by 
politicians for votes. Nay, we may safely predict that no 
doctrine, how wild soever, or pernicious, can acquire many 
proselytes without suddenly finding itself seized on by poli- 
ticians, and wrested from the originators. The fathers of 
abolitionism, who have been statedly set up by their crazed 
friends for the highest political officei in the State and na- 
tion, and stood with their paper crowns upon their heads 
and straw sceptres in their hands while the elections were 
in progress, now, when something may be made by the 



THE SLAVERY QUESTION. 19 

game, find themselves no longer captains over their own 
hosts, and scarcely know whether to rejoice or mourn over 
the suddenly increased importance of their sects. Mor- 
monism and Millerism may yet be in the ascendant, and 
..then their apostles must look well to their flocks ; for our 
politicians are like " the fed horses in the morning," de- 
scribed in the Scriptures, "every one is neighing after his 
neighbor's " political capital. 

With the people alone is the corrective of party morality 
— nothing needs correction more. Would they see public 
men consistent, they must make inconsistency unprofitable ; 
— would they preserve the peace of the Union, they must 
make the promotion of disturbance unpopular. In the 
keeping of the people are also our national destinies, — not 
in the virtues of our assumed leaders ; just as chastity is 
in the keeping of women, — not in the forbearance of doc- 
tors and sages. We cannot, apparently, so surfeit a man 
with popular honors and emoluments as to make him re- 
liable. If an occasion offer, he will arise from jeven his po- 
litical tomb with the unsavoriness of Lazarus, and advocate 
Union or Disunion, Slavery or Anti -Slavery, as either pro- 
mises the means of further aggrandizement, — putting oflf 
an old character and assuming a new one with the facility 
of a stage actor, and with about his shamelessness, when 
he advertises " the character of Abohtionist, by particular 
request of friends, and for one time only, by Mr. V. B." 

Finally, let the maxim be no longer true, that politics 
are the madness of the masses for the benefit of the few. 
The coming election affords the people a glorious opportu- 
nity of teaching politicians a lesson which shall make them 
wiser, if not better ; and let us all aid in making the lesson 
so emphatic and so plain, that even he cannot mistake it 
who thinks the people in 1844 desired the elevation to the 
Presidencv of Martin Van Buren. 



20 EESERVED EIGHTS OF AMERICAN CITIZENS, 



RESERVED TJGHTS OE AMERICAN CITIZENS.* 

As the organization of Nebraska and Kansas threatens 
a new agitation of the Wihnot proviso, an inquiry may not 
be inopportune in relation to the rights of American citi- 
zens who reside within the United States, but beyond the 
hmits of any State. State rights have been often investi- 
gated, but people^s rights remain uninvestigated. The.Con- 
stitution has, however, not left the people without reserved 
rights. It declares that '' the powers not delegated to the 
United States, are reserved to the States respectively, or 
to the peopUy To ascertain, therefore, what powers are re- 
served to the people who reside beyond the limits of any 
State, we have only to extract the powers that are *' dele- 
gated to the United States by the Constitution," and that 
are *' prohibited by it to the States," — and all other powers 
belong to such people. The position is so plain that it 
might be formed into an algebraic equation, and demon- 
strated mathematically. And here we may note inciden- 
tally, that men's notions are vague as to what constitutes 
a State. We usually speak as though a State consisted of 
a given portion of the earth rather than of the people in- 
habiting a given locality ; and this prevents us from seeing 
that Congress possesses, in relation to slavery, no greater 
control over the people who reside in Nebraska or Kansas 
than over people who reside in New- York. Our exaltation 
of the soil of a State over the people thereof is analogous to 
the mistake that exalted the gold of the Temple over the 
Temple — a mistake which drew from our Saviour the sar- 
casm, " Ye fools and blind: for which is greater — the gold, 
or the Temple that sanctifieth the gold ?" 

* Published in 1834. 



RESERVED RIGHTS OF AMERICAN CITIZENS. 21 

The only pretext for an interpretation differing from the 
foregoing exists in the constitutional provision, " that Con- 
gress shall have power to dispose of, and make all needful 
rules and regulations respecting the territory or other pro- 
perty belonging to the United States ;" but to construe this 
as giving Congress power to dispose of and make all need- 
ful rules and regulations respecting citizens living on their 
own lands in any part of the United States, constitutes a 
laxity of construction at war with common sense. Think 
of " We, the people of the United States, in order to secure 
the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do 
ordain " that all of them who shall choose to reside beyond 
the boundaries of any State shall possess such liberties only 
as Congress shall from time to time prescribe. 

But if our citizens who remove to Nebraska or Kansas 
carry with them all povvers, except those delegated to the 
United States and prohibited to the States, will they possess 
the right of sending representatives to Congress ? No ; the 
people of Nebraska or Kansas can claim none of the pow- 
ers which belong to a State or territory till they are ad- 
mitted as such into the Union. The right of Congress to 
admit a State, or reject an admission, is, however, essen- 
tially different from the right to dictate to a people whether 
they shall permit slavery or not ; the right to admit or re- 
ject being placed expressly within the unlimited discretion 
of Congress, while the power to dictate in relation to slavery 
is nowhere granted. The distinction in the two cases is 
highly important to a correct understanding of the people's 
rights. 

But though the admission of any new State is thus with- 
in the constitutional option of Congress, the decision is not 
exempt from resulting consequences, whether we choose to 
be influenced thereby or not. Our Confederacy is an off- 



22 RESERVED RIGHTS OF AMERICAN CITIZENS. 

spring of volition, and the volition which created the Con- 
federacy is naainly the naeans which have thus far held it 
together ; and as long as they continue operative, will be 
adequate to preserve the Union in all future time. Any 
decision, therefore, in relation to the admission of a State, 
that unnecessarily prejudices the interest of a portion of the 
States — more especially any decision that unnecessarily out- 
rages any portion of the States — will weaken the volition 
towards union that constitutes our most reliable cement. 
Force, which alone has held together all preceding exten- 
sive nationahties, has never rendered such adhesions per- 
petual ; and our States, whose origin is revolutionary, and 
who are individually organized as sovereigns, are not likely 
to deem oppression less bitter than their progenitors. 

Such being the tenure by which our Confederacy is united, 
what means are most efficient to prevent aggression on 
the respective members? Tyranny is unfortunately not 
Kussian, nor Turkish, nor Austrian, nor Roman Catholic, 
nor Protestant, but a concomitant of every majority. The 
predisposition towards tyranny is so strong in power where- 
ever located, that it needs but an exciting cause to make it 
burst forth at any time ; and wholly irrespective of the ab- 
stract qualities of the exciting cause. If a majority prefer 
to drink water, they will fine and imprison those who pre- 
fer wine and brandy. If a majority profess one creed in 
religion, they will punish all persons of a different creed. 
In Hayti, the majority being black, proscribe mulattoes ; 
and in our country, a majority of the States having chosen 
to abolish slavery, proscribe other States who choose not 
to abolish it. 

The inherent tyranny of human nature is, therefore, the 
evil with which our Confederacy will have continually to 
contend. It shows itself now in the matter of slavery — it 



RESERVED RIGHTS OF AMERICAN CITIZENS. 23 

may show itself hereafter in some other form ; and the ques- 
tion most interesting to the perpetuity of our Confederacy 
is, how the minority can protect itself from aggression. 
Pi'ovidence has implanted the remedy in every breast to- 
gether with the tyranny, and as an antidote thereto — it is 
resistance. Oppressors may abhor resistance, and attempt 
to hoot it down ; but power will ever crush its victim to 
the extent of his sufferance. To resistance alone we owe 
the admission into the Union, in 1821, of Missouri with a 
compromise ; and to more resistance we should have had 
Missouri without any compromise. We may say the same 
of all that is nationally Justin the Acts of 1850. Compro- 
mises, which surrender a part for the security of the remain- 
der, can only make the weak weaker, and the strong 
stronger. Turkey tried the experiment with Russia years 
since, and is naturally called to try it again. Compromises 
for the sake of the Union can insure only a lingering death ; 
for the time will come when the burdens accuniulated by 
conciliation " will break the camel's back ;" but resistance 
for the sake of the Union can preserve us enduringly, by 
preventing the accumulation of any such burden. How 
resistance is to be made, and what shall constitute the 
casus federis for its exhibition, I mean not to discuss ; and 
long may any necessity therefor be distant. I exhibit only 
the principles of our perpetuity, that, by studying them, our 
citizens of every locality may enjoy their own domestic in 
stitutions in their own way, and be willing to give a like 
blessed freedom to the citizens of every other locality. 



24 THE KANSAS-NEBRASKA QUESTION. 



THE KANSAS-NEEKASKA QUESTION.* 

Should a man on trial for murder offer to prove that 
the murdered man was a drunkard and an infidel, the court 
would reject the testimony, it having no connection with 
the issue, which is simply whether a murder has been per- 
petrated, and whether the prisoner is the perpetrator ; so 
the demerits of slavery have no proper connection with 
the Nebraska-Kansas controversy, the issue thereon being 
simply whether the prohibition of slavery is among the 
powers granted to Congress by the Constitution. 

The constitutional question I intend not to re-argue, but 1 
will attempt to show the wisdom of the constitutional pro- 
vision which limits the legislation of Congress to specified 
subjects And here we must remember that the wisdom 
of the limitation in all its consequences is the criterion by 
which it must be judged, not simply its effects on the ex- 
tension of slavery. Some evil attends every good, and the 
joys of even the next world are not attainable but 
at some present sacrifices. The constitutional limitation 
that prevents the prohibition of slavery in Kansas, shields us 
from any Congressional enforcement of slavery in New- York. 
1 have lawfully owned slaves in Utica — slaves for life; but we 
abolished slavery when we desired, irrespective of what Con- 
gress thought thereof We construct railroads and canals 
despite what Congress may think of public improvements. 
We hang criminals for murder and arson, or refrain from 
hanging, regardlpss of the notions of Congressional philan- 
thropy. We model our civil codes at our unrestricted 
will, institute jury trials or dispense with juries, adopfthe 
common law or any other we prefer, frame bills of right to 

* Published in 1854. 



THE KANSAS-NEBEASKA QUESTION. 25 

suit our views of liberty, and give the elective franchise to 
whom alone we please. 

But, after we have considered the foregoing results, we 
shall possess an inadequate appreciation of the value of 
the restrictions on Congress, unless we know further, that 
to their most rigid construction alone we owe that our na- 
tion is preserved from degenerating into a central des- 
potism, absorbing all State sovereignty, till the disgusted, 
coerced, and over-ridden parts shall disrupt into congenial 
fragments, like all preceding great nationalities ; a calamity 
whose magnitude we are almost prevented from under- 
standing, — the General Government dispensing to us its 
benefits as insensibly as the atmosphere, which we move 
through with an almost unconsciousness of its existence and 
life-supporting influences. fWhether we possess general 
intelligence enough to understand the restraints that alone 
can perpetuate a Confederacy so extensive as ours, and so 
diversified in local interests, prejudices, and habits ; and 
whether, admitting the intelligence, we possess self-denial 
enough to forego the advantages which numerical force 
may enable one portion of the Confederacy to take over 
the feelings or interests of any other portion, — are experi- 
ments to be tested by this Kansas-Nebraska bill, and kin- 
dred measures, under the inherent disadvantage that every 
locality iurnishes influential men who soon find that per- 
sonal interests are better subserved by pandering to our 
prejudices than by enlightening our intellects ; and who, ac- 
cordingly, are less disposed to enlighten even their own intel- 
lects by constitutional studies, than to rush into every con- 
troversy on the side which promises to be the most popu- 
lar, y 

TThe general desire for a National Union occasioned its 
formation, and kept us harmoniously united for a quarter 
of a century. A new generation had then arisen, to whom 



26 THE KANSAS-NEBRASKA QUESTION. 

were practically unknown the evils that preceded the Con- 
stitution ; and the new generation soon began to develop 
latent elements of discord, (like the present Kansas-Ne- 
braska controversy,) which Washington, in his farewell le- 
gacy of 1796, had paternally foreseen, and against which 
he recorded his warnings ; with how little effect let a late 
petition testify, of some hundreds of New- York clergy, 
headed by the Bishop of their diocese, " to make the caldron 
boil and bubble." And let testify also, the meetings, 
through the North, of laymen, without distinction of party, 
as is alleged — gatherings, without distinction of party, on 
a subject whose solution depends upon whether the Consti- 
tution shall be interpreted strictly or loosely, — a criterion 
that is the ultimate foundation of all our party divisions, in 
relation, not merely to the action of Congress on slavery* 
but on tariffs, public improvements, United States Bank, 
and every other permanent question of any moment on 
which our citizens have ever differed nationally. With as 
little absurdity might Christians assemble, without distinc- 
tion of sects^ to determine how the Bible shall be construed 
on the subject of baptism, extemporaneous prayers, formu- 
las, hierarchies, &c. If the mingled sectaries should agree, 
they would no longer constitute different sects ; and if our 
citizens of different parties agree that the Constitution per- 
mits Congress to exclude slavery from Kansas or Ne- 
braska, they will all belong to the party of lax construction- 
ists, designate themselves as differently as they may 
please. 

The Bible says of God, that He wants obedience rather 
than sacrifice ; and Washington, were he present, would 
say that he prefers obedience rather than the costly monu- 
ment which we substitute in place of obedience, and which, 
in our zeal for his memory, we erect by obtruding pecu- 
niary contributions therefor among our ballot-boxes, at the 



THE KANSAS-NEBRASKA QUESTION. 27 

expense, perhaps, of driving therefrom some sensitive poor 
men who have no ostentatious contribution to spare. Still, 
amid much to alarm patriotism for the perpetuity of our 
Union, among those who believe that its perpetuity de- 
pends upon a strict construction of the Constitution, and of 
which the present Kansas-Nebraska bill is a fruit, we ma) 
derive encouragement from the reflection that the New 
Testament existed fifteen hundred years before Christians 
learnt therefrom that to burn heretics was not fulfillinor the 
gospel ; while we, in about the third of a century from 1820, 
have so far learnt the true construction of our Constitution, 
that the Missouri Compromise, a cancerous excrescence on 
our confederative cohesiveness, has been declared void by 
a large majority of the United States Senate,"^ composed, as 
we may well believe, of the foremost men of our Repubhc. 
Knowledge is cumulative and progressive, and the true 
construction of our Constitution thus made visible, will pro- 
bably result in a more perfect union than w^e have enjoyed 
for years ; and the fruit of which being the extinction of 
geographical rivalries, we may extend the blessings of our 
liberty Canada-wards, or Mexico-wards, to as much new 
territory as Providence may think proper at any time to 
grant us by honest means ; filHng it with a contented, 
prosperous, and free people, — each Jocality of the broad 
whole conserving its own domestic interests, and yielding 
wiHingly alike precious liberty to all the others. 

* The House of Representatives had not yet acted on the bill. 



28 THE KANSAS-NEBKASKA QUESTION CONCLUDED. 



THE KANSAS-NEBEASKA QUESTION CONCLUDED.* 

When a ship is on tiie ocean and a sudden cry announ- 
ces a man overboard, the deck immediately becomes 
thronged by the crew and passengers ; and then may be 
seen human nature in its various phases. The timid will 
shrink from the ship's side, lest they also fall over ; the self- 
ish will bless God they are not in the drowning man's po- 
sition ; while the prejudiced will think he is only a rum-sel- 
ler, a heretic, or a slave-holder — let him go ; but a few, na- 
ture's true nobility, will plunge into the ocean to save the 
man, regardless of what he is, and thinking only of duty. 
Something like this is transpiring now. The United States, 
coursing on Time's fathomless ocean, is suddenly agitated ; a 
principle is overboard, struggling between life and death — 
the old continental principle that taxation and representa- 
tion must not be separated into two bodies — one body to 
rule without sharing in the burdens thereof, the other to 
be ruled without sharing in the adjustment thereof. And 
here, also, may be seen human nature in various phases. 
The timid think they have no personal interest in Kansas 
or Nebraska, and keep aloof, lest they be endangered there- 
by ; the selfish balance the advantages of opposition against 
the advantages of acquiescence, while the prejudiced see 
nothing but slavery in danger, and are desirous it shall 
perish : but some rush to the rescue of a great national 
principle, regardless of their predilections in relation to the 
measure that happens to be in danger. . 

The large mass of mankind are, however, not included in 
any of the above classes. Want of leisure, or defective 

* Published March 20th, 1854. 



THE KlAySAS'-NEBTlASKA QUESTION CONCLUDED. 29 

education, prevents most men from discriminating between 
measures and principles. They will destroy the liberty of 
speech, when any given speech is offensive to them ; they 
will destroy the liberty of conscience, when a man worships 
as they think he ought not to worship ; they will destroy 
the personal liberty of their neighbor, when he drinks what 
they think he ought not to drink ; and they will destroy 
self-government in Kansas and Nebraska, lest the inhabitants 
should legislate favorably towards negro slavery. Lynch 
law is the worst example of a regard for measures irrespec- 
tive of principles ; still, in our zeal for particular measures, 
we often violate great principles by legislation, and such 
a violation differs from Lynch law in only sinning legally, 
instead of sinning illegally. If v/e admit law to be the only 
criterion of right and wrong, every species of tyranny may 
become justified. 

The persons who thus subordinate principles to meas- 
ures are generally honest, and their errors proceed from 
generous impulses, even in the worst exercises of Lynch 
law. On the enlightenment of the great mass of every 
community, in the discrimination between measures and 
principles, we must mainly rely for the preservation of our 
liberties, which will never be attacked except indirectly in 
the guise of measures that happen to be unpopular. A 
proverb says, " Take care of your cents and dollars will 
take care of themselves." We may parody the proverb 
and say, Take care of measures and principles will take care 
of themselves. Sectarian, hate constitutes the best known 
type of '' the worm that never dies and the fire that is 
never quenched.'^ It caused the destruction, at midnight, 
of a nunnery in Boston, the demolition of a costly chapel 
in Philadelphia, the expulsion of the Mormons from Mis- 
souri, and our own occasional, though not recent, petty 



80 THE KANSAS-NEBRASKA QUESTION CONCLUDED. 

persecutions of the Shaking Quakers of New- Lebanon. 
But with this hate born in every man, what caused univer- 
sal toleration of opinion to be guaranteed to all men by our 
State and National Constitutions ? It was a knowledge 
that in a mixed population like ours no safety exists for any 
sect but in a universal protection of all. Our institutions 
will not be safe till we understand that a like universal 
protection is necessary to every measure that concerns any 
of the great principles that constitute the glory and happi- 
ness of our country ; and perhaps the necessity of protect- 
ing all, if we would insure the protection of any, is a means 
designed by Providence to restrain the personal selfishness 
aj^d self-will which are inseparable from human nature, 
f Still, the necessity of tolerating measures for the sake of 
great principles is so little understood, that, at a late 
gathering in New- York of several thousands of native 
Germans, they remonstrated against the passage of the 
Maine Law and the Kansas-Nebraska bill ; unconscious 
that, if we may dictate what the people of Kansas shall do 
with slavery, one portion of our people may as properly 
dictate what another portion shall drink. When the drink 
war commenced against every man's sovereignty over his 
own stomach and pockets, the prohibition was only against 
alcohol, and the drinkers of good wine, beer, and cider be- 
came ready partisans in the war against vulgar alcohol, 
which they never drank ; not knowing that the principle 
which justifies interference with one beverage will justify 
an interference with all, and that the security from molest- 
ation of any depends on a defence of all.^ 

Many of our Irish citizens are exhibiting a like indis- 
crimination between measures and principles. They 
abandoned Ireland because it is governed by a British Le- 
gislature ; still they oppose the Kansas-Nebraska bill because 



THE KANSAS-NEBRASKA QUESTION CONCLUDED. 81 

it permits the people of Nebraska to govern themselves. 
The Irish hate slavery, and, doubtless, a like hate of Irish 
religion and other Irish social peculiarities is equally honest 
with Englishmen; and if slavery is to be interdicted in Ne- 
braska, by reason that the Irish hate it, are they not justi- 
fying Englishmen in interdicting Irish peculiarities that 
Englishmen hate ? 



CHAPTER 11. 

QF THE NATURE OF OUR CONFEDERACY. 



f IE PHILOSOPHY OF THE AMEEICAN UNION ; OE, THE PEIN- 
CIPLES OF ITS COHESIVENESS.* 

§ 1. 77ie Elements of Disunion. 

Whom God hath united let no man separate, is an in- 
junction applied to man and woman in matrimony, and is 
founded on the correlative organization of the wedded 
couple. God has created each of the parties incomplete 
without the other, and endued each with organs, desires, 
intellectual tendencies, and physical powers subsidiary to 
the social coalescence of the two. The same injunction 
is ocasionally applied fondly to the political union of the 
sovereign States in our national Confederacy; but we shall 
speak more profitably, in times like the present, if we exam- 
ine less poetically the characteristics of our Federal na- 
tionality, which, instead of being a union that nature dictated, 
is a result of consummate art to unite those whom God sep- 
arated, by making some of them powerful and others fee- 
ble ,' scattering them also apart with vast intervening dis- 
tances; diversifying them with great differences of climate, 
natural productions, social habits, industrial pursuits, and 
capabilities — so that even a uniform tariff of imposts, which 
shall be compatible with the prosperity of all the States, is 
constantly a result of elaborately adjusted compromises be- 

* Published Januai-y Jst, 1850. 



THE PHILOSOPHY OF THE AMERICAN UNION. o3 

I'ween the antagonistic interests of the respective confeder- 
ates. So violently were these antagonisms brought into 
conflict in the year 1832, by a tariff that was deemed too 
favorable to protection, and consequently too aggressive to 
the non-manufacturing States who were only consumers, 
that South Carolina organized a system of resistance to its 
collection ; though a tariff is the most indispensable want 
of the General Government, and to insure its uniformity in 
all the States, was one of the principal motives for the form- 
ation of our Union. So the long embargo that occurred 
during the Presidency of JefHerson, and the long commercial 
non-intercourse with foreign countries, and subsequent 
war during the Presidency of Madison, were results of some 
of the most indispensable functions of every Government ; 
but they affected our States so differently, that while some 
prospered thereunder, others were so injured, that a Con- 
vention was assembled at Plartford to give organization 
and efhciency to the dissatisfied, with a view to the coerc- 
ive termination of their grievances. 

The foregoing elements of disunion are inveterated by the 
constituent formation of our National Legislature. In the 
French Chambers the members are all Frenchmen ; but 
our members of Congress are Georgians, New-Yorkers, 
Carolinians, Pennsylvanians, &c., every member being 
identified by interest and filial attachments with the State 
he represents, and to whose partiality he owes bis station, 
and ordinarily his hopes of further advancement. The 
practical effect of this want of homogeneity in our Legisla- 
ture is seen in the hostihty which existed to the purchase 
of Louisiana and Florida, to the acquisition of Texas, to 
the progress of our victories in Mexico, and in our churlish 
reception, by treaty, of California and New Mexico ; — the 
effect on each State of any increase of ^the nation being 

3 



84 THE PHILOSOPHY OF THE AMEEICAN LTNIOIs^ 

alone considered by every nnember of Congress,- — not tae 
benefit of the increase to the Union as a whole. 

The elements of disunion thus exemplified rather than 
enumerated, are not unexpected ingredients in our Confeder- 
acy. They manifested themselves in the Convention that 
formed our National Constitution, and constituted an obsta- 
cle which seemed for a long time insurmountable, and 
which was ultimately overcome by only numerous com- 
promises, " To draw with precision the line between those 
rights which must be surrendered, and those which may 
be preserved, is at all times difficult," said the Convention ; 
" and on the present occasion this difficulty," say they,. 
*' w^as increased by a difierence among the several States 
as to their situation, extent, habits, and particular interests. 
The Constitution which we now present is the result of a 
spirit of amity, and of that natural deference and conces- 
sion which the peculiarity of our political situation Ten- 
dered indispensable. That it will meet the full and entire 
approbation of every State is not, perhaps, to be expected ; 
but each will doubtless consider, that had her interests 
alone been consulted, the consequences might have been 
particularly disagreeable or injurious to others. 

" By the unanimous order of the Convention, 

" George Washington, President" 

§2. The most efficient comproviise in forming the General 
Government was a limitation of its poicers. 

When we speak of the compromises of the (Constitution^ 
we are prone to regard only the provisions that relate to 
domestic slavery. These compromises proceeded from the 
clashing interests of the several States ; but the most im- 
portant compromise consisted in reconciling the clashing in- 
terests of the Federal sovereignty that was to be created, 
and the sovereignty that was sought to be retained by each 



THE PHILOSOPHY OF THE AMERICAN UNION. 35 

State. The reconcilement was eventually perfected by 
limiting the action of the General Government to a small 
number of expressed objects. The States had recently 
emerged from a contest vidth Great Britain, whose monarch 
had ceded his undoubted sovereignty, not to the United 
States as a whole, but to each State severally and by name ; 
hence the States went into the Constitutional Convention 
as independent sovereigns. They severally determined to 
make no surrenders of power not dictated by their re- 
spective interests ; and they severally retired from the Con- 
vention believing that they retained all the sovereignty they 
had not specifically surrendered. We may well admire the 
elaborate precautions that were taken in the Constitution 
to render this belief apparent and secure ; but to make the 
restriction as definite as language can make it, the first 
Congress that assembled under the new Constitution, 
(March 4th, 1789,) added thereto an amendment, which 
was subsequently duly ratified, that, '' the powers not dele- 
gated to the United States by the Constitution, nor pro- 
hibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States re- 
spectively, or the people." The amendment grew out of a 
desire therefor by several States, expressed when they origin- 
ally acceded to the Constitution ; and for the avowed ob- 
ject of " preventing misconception or abuse of power." 

§ 3. The cohesiveness of the Confeder'acy^ and the circum- 
scription of its 'powers, are measures of each other. 

When France adopted recently universal suffrage as the 
basis of her Republic, Lamartine remarked in its favor, that 
universal suffrage was the strongest basis which any gov- 
ernment could adopt, by reason that all occasions for re- 
volution were extinguished, when a people can at all times 
legally adapt public measures to their own will. By like 
principles, a Confederacy in which each confederate can 



S6 THE PHILOSOPHY OF THE AMERICAN UNIO:^^ 

regulate her own interests, must be the most cohesive of 
all associations, — no occasion for disunion being possible. 
But a liberty so extensive would render impossible any 
general action ; hence the framers of our Constitu- 
tion approximated to this extreme liberty, as far as prac- 
ticable, by leaving to the respective States all their sover- 
eignty, except in a few particulars, whose surrender was 
deemed beneficial to each and all. Indeed, no mathemati- 
cal proposition can be more certain, than that we diminisli 
the causes of disunion, in proportion as we circumscribe 
the number of occasions in which the action of the Gener- 
al Government can conflict with local interests. The con- 
verse of this rule is equally true ; and if our States should 
unanimously alter the Constitution, giving unlimited sover- 
eignty to the General Government, our local interests, habits, 
and pursuits are so conflicting, that the Union would soon 
break into fragments, as all former large empires have 
broken, whose cohesion has been mihtary force, — a cohe- 
sion which alone can hold together even temporarily anta- 
gonistic interests that a single legislature attempts to sub- 
ject to Procrustean laws. 

§ 4. The construction of our Confederacy is wiser than its 
framers. 

The preservative virtue which, as shown above, is in- 
nate in the limited powers of our General Government, was 
not foreseen by the framers of our National Constitution, 
wise and patriotic as we delight to deem them. The limit- 
ations originated in the accidental division of our country 
into separate colonies, with separate legislative organizations, 
and other concomitants of distinct sovereignties. Had our 
people been united under one government before our sepa- 
ration from Great Britain, the whole, after the attainment 
of independence, would doubtless have continued united 



THE PHILOSOPHY OF THE AMERICAN UNION. 87 

under some single organization ; notwithstanding the les- 
son of all history, that large consolidated governments, 
whether monarchical or republican, contain alike the ele- 
ments of dissolution. Happily, therefore, for us, when our 
ancestors convened to " form a more perfect union," the 
discordant interests of our extensive country were already 
grouped into separate State sovereignties, which could be 
united under one federal whole only by continuing measur- 
ably distinct. Our National Government commenced, there- 
fore, in a separation, just where a consolidated national 
government would have violently terminated, after some 
years of smouldering rebellion. The wisdom of no man 
could have originated the conception of a government 
limited like ours ; and we are yet to learn whether man 
possesses wisdom enough to endure its limitations. To 
err in this particular is most easy; for, while the motive for 
limitations can be seen by only laborious examination, the 
motives for disregarding their spirit, if not their letter, are 
as apparent to every member of Congress, and partisan 
orator, as the blessings which he sees deducible from any 
measure that will minister to his prejudices, interests, or 
self-conceit. 

§ 5. The limitations of our Constitution are as favorable 
to personal liberty as to the duration .of our Confederacy. 

Notwithstanding the world has gazed at our political 
system for more than sixty years, the vulgar principle of 
forcibly subjecting one locality to the interests and notions 
of another, is the only kind of aggregated nationality that 
is yet practised in Europe ; hence the first use which 
France made of its lately acquired republicanism was to 
impose the philanthropy of France on its West India colo- 
nies, by abolishing therein domestic slavery, irrespective 
wholly of the wishes and interests of the colonists, who 



88 THE PHILOSOPHY OF THE AMERICAN UNION". 

were thus summarily deprived of self-government. Such 
an intermeddling with other people's consciences and pro- 
perty, though probably consummated in deference to liberty, 
is repugnant to the more pervading liberty which results 
from permitting every communit}^ to regulate its own do- 
mestic polity, — a liberty which is as precious to a small 
community as to a larger, and which is surrendered by any, 
from only physical necessity. 

The principle of interference by one community with the 
local concerns of another, is, however, never limited to 
domestic slavery. It is practised towards the religious pre- 
judices of Ireland, and accordingly Ireland evinces con- 
stant uneasiness to be disconnected from England. The 
principle of interference, wherever established, obeys no 
limit, but the sufferance of its victims ; hence the repeated 
insurrections of Poland to be severed from Russia, and the 
late sanguinary struggle of Hungary to be independent of 
Austria. These sad results of interference contrast widely 
with the conduct of Texas, voluntarily relinquishing her 
distinct nationality, and in the language of a great man, 
*' fighting her way into our Union." And look at Califor- 
nia, when lately the steamship Oregon was descried in the 
bay of San Francisco, and by the continued booming of her 
cannon gave notice that she brought great news. Imme- 
diately multitudes of joyfully-expectant people rushed to the 
beach, and from every pinnacle floated suddenly the "stars 
and stripes," for California was admitted into the Union. 
But let no man suppose, that the bells which were pealed 
on that occasion, the bonfires which lighted every hill, the 
public meetings for congratulation, and the general enthu- 
siasm, were produced by considerations that California had 
become connected with a powerful sovereignty. The en- 
thusiasm arose from a consciousness that California had 



THE PHILOSOPHY OF THE AMERICAN UKION. 89 

herself become sovereign, with only so much subjection to 
the General Government as California believed was for her 
advantage, 

§ 6. The limitations of the Constitution exist in its construe- 
don more thayi in its language. 

Havinar shown that the limitations of the Constitution 

o 

are as favorable to liberty as to the duration of our Confed- 
eracy, we gain but little, because the efficiency of the 
limitations will depend on the rules of construction which 
we apply to them. This is discoverable in the diversity of 
opinions which at different times have prevailed on the 
constitutionality of a National Bank. Captiousness is not 
the origin of the disagreements, but an inherent diversity 
of men's feelings, interests, knowledge, and acuteness; hence 
the principles v/hich are to be used in construing consti- 
tutional limitations, are of more practical importance than 
the words in which the limitations are expressed. All con- 
structions of any instrument are governed by the objects 
which the construer thinky the instrument was designed to 
subserve ; hence a politician who views the' limitations of 
the Constitution as a remedy against a dissolution of the 
Confederacy — and consequently as the only means where- 
by any political good can be permanently accomplished by 
the Confederacy — will be a strict constructionist of the 
powers of the Constitution. But the politician who looks 
at the limitations as only unreasonable obstructions of the 
power " to promote the general welfare,-' will deem the 
limitations as penalties, to be inflicted only where the}- 
must ; and he will be a loose constructionist of the pov^ers 
of the Constitution. John Quincy Adams, a loose con- 
structionist, said, in his fir,it Presidential Message to Con- 
gress, " while dwelling with pleasing satisfaction upon the 
superior excellence of our political institutions, let us not 



40 THE PHILOSOPHY OF THE AMERICAN UNION. 

be unmindful that liberty is power ; that tlie nation, blessed 
with the largest portion of liberty, must, in proportion to 
its numbers, be the most powerful nation upon earth ; and 
that the tenure of power by man is, in the moral purposes 
of his Creator, upon condition that it shall be exercised to 
the ends of beneficence, to improve the condition of him- 
self and his fellow-men. While foreign nations, less blessed 
than ourselves with that freedom which is power, are ad- 
vancing with gigantic strides in the career of public im- 
provement, were we to slumber in indolence, or fold up 
our arms and proclaim to the world that we are palsied by 
the will of our constituents, would it not be to cast away 
the bounties of Providence, and doom ourselves to perpetual 
inferiority ?" 

All that is thus so v^ell and patriotically stated by Mr, 
Adams is true, but it is totally inapplicable to our Confed- 
eracy, which is a nation for only a limited number of pur- 
poses, and can continue a nation by only adhering strictly 
to the limitations ; as we may be assured hy the present 
agitations, as well as by several preceding ones, which 
brought the Confederacy to the verge of dissolution. The 
power to which Mr. Adams alludes, exists in our States re- 
spectively, and their people, who, instead "of slumbering 
in indolence and folding their arms," have advanced in the 
career of public improvements, canals, railroads, plankroads, 
electric telegraphs, steamboaj: navigation, steamship con- 
struction, public education, and all other elements of pro- 
gress, to a degree which no other people ever witnessed ; and 
to a degree which the National Government could not have 
attained, had it been legally invested with the attributes of 
unrestricted sovereignty.* 

* For further elucidations on this point, see ''The Constitutional Power of Congress, 
over Public Improvements," as discussed hereafter. 



THE PHILOSOPHY OF THE AMERICAN UNION. 41 

§ 7. Our only alternative is strict construction or dissolu- 
tion. 

Seeing, then, that the loosest construction will not pro- 
mote good objects so effectively as the strictest construc- 
tion, we need not regret, that nature yields us no alterna- 
tive but to be content with the good which the General Gov- 
ernment can effect within the sphere of its most restricted 
powers, or to weaken the bonds of our Union. Recent 
events show these views to be more than theoretical, and 
the most obtuse intellect sees that the loose construction by 
which Congress claims the power to circumscribe domes- 
tic slavery in the territories, interferes so sensitively with 
our Southern confederates as to endanger the Union. 

Now, in relation to the right of a State to secede from the 
Union, or to redress injuries to her sovereignty by any 
other means in her power, the right is not constitutional, 
any more than our original Revolution was loyal, or than 
our War of 1812 was conformable to the definitive treaty 
made with Great Britain in 1783, and which stipulated for 
a " perpetual peace." The right of secession is neverthe- 
less among the "inalienable rights of life, liberty, and the 
pursuit of happiness," referred to in the Declaration of In- 
dependence ; and with which it says, we are endowed by 
our Creator ; and that " whenever any form of government 
becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the 
people to alter or abolish it, and to institute a new govern- 
ment." 

We all feel that secession is practicable ; and to urge a 
discontinuance of further annoyances against the South, 
we have lately seen numerously attended " Union Meetings " 
in our large cities, and their influence will be salutary ; but 
the parties have not probed to the bottom of the difficulty. 
Indeed, the superficial views which these meetings take of 

3* 



42 THE PHILOSOPHY OF THE AMERICAN UNION. 

the difficulty, is painfully indicative that the nature of our 
Confederacy is too little understood by its friends. They 
see our danger, and are desirous of averting it ; but they 
seem moved thereto more by fear of consequences than 
conviction of error, in the principle from which the danger 
has arisen. They cry aloud for Union, and some would 
fight for it ; but these are not the way (especially the latter) 
to obtain it, and humanity may rejoice it is not. But, es- 
pecially, they seem not to know that slavery agitation is 
only the symptom of a disease, not the disease itself. The 
disease is a loose construction of the Constitution, and the 
remedy is a strict construction. Slavery is only the symp- 
tom of to-day, as a protective tariff was the symptom of 
1832, and as a great system of internal improvements by 
the General Government may be the symptom to-morrow. 
The friends of Union, therefore, should understand that 
they must be strict constructionists of the Constitution, if 
they would be Union-men in an intelligent, pervading, and 
enduring sense. 

§ 8. Wholesome restriction exceeds the conventional restric- 
tions. 

Nor need we fear that the strictest construction to which 
we can subject the Constitution, will be prejudicial. Our 
dano-ers lie not thitherward. The abolition of slavery in 
the District of Columbia is constitutionally within the 
power of Congress, as was the abolition therein of the 
slave trade ; but who knows not that this legislation is dis- 
tasteful to the South, and thus conflicts in spirit with the 
constitutional restrictions which enable the Confederacy to 
hold together? When, also, some years ago, the proceeds 
of the public lands were distributed among the States in 
the most equitable manner, to the great relief of some 
States, and to the support of education in others, yet it was 



THE PHILOSOPHY OF THE AMERICAIN UNIOI^". 43 

oifensive to some of the agricultural States, though cer- 
tainly constitutional. They saw that the money which 
was thus diverted from the Federal treasury would neces- 
sarily be supplied by an enhanced tariff^; and that the non- 
manufacturing States would thus be taxed to the benefit 
of the manufacturing States, as effectually as though the 
tariff had been enhanced for the express purpose of protec- 
tion. 

§ 9. The 7?iost preservative principle is the danger from 
aggression. 

But after enlightening ourselves on the preservative 
qualities of a strict construction of the Constitution, how 
can we insure its application in national legislation ? A 
present good has ever preponderated over a prospective 
evil. The strong have ever tyrannized over the weaker, 
to the extent that aggression was met by sufferance. Ag- 
gression, therefore, can be arrested only by resistance. 
Nor is the remedy speculative merely. When Missouri, 
in 1820, w^as refused admission into the Union, by reason 
that her Constitution permitted domestic slaver}^, nothing 
prevented a consummation of the aggression but unmistak- 
able demonstrations that it would effect a dissolution of 
the Confederacy. So the resistance, in 1832, of South Car- 
olina to a protective tariff, was mainly effectual in the 
subsequent abandonment of the principle ; till now, the 
most which is claimed by the opponents of free trade, is an 
incidental protection, after the expenditures of the Govern- 
ment shall be reduced, as much as practicable, by economy 
and the land money. But to omit old examples, what 
caused the abandonment, at the last session of Congress, of 
the Wilmot proviso, though patriotism during the war with 
Mexico, and our armies there in imminent peril for rein- 
forcements, in vain could cause it to be abandoned ? Ancj 



44 THE PHILOSOPHY OF THE AMERICAN UNIOK. 

what caused the efficient amendment of the Fugitive Slave 
Law, the nullification of which for many long years, had 
been the labored effort of States, and the favorite amuse- 
ment of associated societies ? and what arouses in nearly 
all our cities Union meetings, without distinction of party, 
to arrest slavery agitation, on which parties so long have 
lived ? It is the determined spirit evinced by some of the 
aggrieved States, that they will no longer submit to what 
outrages their interests and their feelings. 

Let not the truly Union men, therefore, look with dis- 
approbation at the disunion agitation which is pervading 
the South, for it is but the tempest which is to purify the 
political atmosphere ; and by a means which God has or- 
dained for the purposes of longevity. Nations and society 
of every grade are kept peaceable and just, only by the an- 
tagonisms which nature arouses between the aggrieved 
and the aggressor. Sufferance, on the contrary, but facili- 
tates further aggression ; and unrestricted submission in 
the intercourse of mankind with each other, would be at- 
tended with universal ravage, rapine, and outrage. Thus, 
had the Slave States submitted tamely to the imposition of 
the Wilmot proviso to New-Mexico and Utah, we should, 
instead of Union meetings to arrest further agitation, have 
had meetings everywhere to spirit forward the abolition of 
slavery in the District of Columbia ; and our Confederacy, 
" soaring in its pride of place," would have been continu- 
ally thus "hawked at by every mousing owl," till it would 
have lost all its preservative elements, and become practi- 
cally a huge consolidation, which the diversity of exasper- 
ated local interests, and geographical hatreds, would event- 
ually have broken into irreparable fragments. For the 
aggrieved to resist aggression is, therefore, the most patri- 
otic of duties ; and the fault of the South consists in not 



THE PHlLOSOPHy OF THE AMERICAN UNION. 46 

having resisted effectually in 1820, instead of compromising, 
by the circumscription of slavery, to obtain the admission 
of Missouri. H an injured party is subdued by force, he 
must submit; but he who submits w^ithout physical neces- 
sity is an accessory to his own dishonor ; and in our Con- 
federacy he becomes an accomplice in the overthrow of 
the Union. 

§ 10. All the concessions of the South have been rendered 
without an equivalent. 

Nor need we be surprised that the South is not quieted 
by the late Compromise Measures. Who sees not that the 
Caiifornians formed their Constitution under the coercion 
of knowing that admission into the Union was impractica- 
ble, except by a prohibition of slavery. To say that the 
new Fugitive Slave Law is an equivalent for this aggression 
is to aggravate the injury by t?king advantage of our own 
wrong ; for the new law is beneficial to the South only be- 
cause we practically nullified the old. The like may be 
said of our abandonment of the Wilmot proviso in the or- 
ganization of New-Mexico and Utah — an abandonment that 
was useful to the South by reason only of our wrong in 
meditating the restriction. In short, every compromise the 
South has entered into has resulted in a sacrifice without 
any available equivalent. Capitation, and other direct tax- 
ation, was, by the Constitution, to be apportioned among 
the States according to the ratio of their representation ; 
hence, rather than be taxed for the whole number of their 
slaves, the South consented that every five slaves should 
be counted as only three persons. But no direct taxation 
is levied, and the loss of representation by the South is 
without an equivalent ; aggravated^ too, by the fact that 
every five slaves who escape into the North without being 
recaptured, will be represented in Congress as five persons, 



46 THE PHILOSOPHY OF THE AMERICAN UNION. 

though the blacks are usually as much debarred from the 
right of suffrage in the North as in the South. 

§ 11. The remedy which can alone restore fraternal har- 
mony. 

The people, like other sovereigns, are so little accustomed 
to hear truth, that to a portion of them the foregoing remarks 
may seem strange ; but the time is arrived when the whole 
truth should be told, that our citizens, never acting inten- 
tionally wrong, may know what is due to their virtue and 
patriotism. They will not learn it from partisan leaders, 
who, in speaking of even the late Compromise Measures, 
seem more intent on apologizing for abandoning the Wil- 
mot proviso, (some law of God having superseded it, they 
say,) than by wholesomely inculcating the usurpation of 
its infliction. To thus doubt the patriotism and wisdom 
of the people is an old error, and will not medicate the 
wounds we have inflicted in fraternal bosoms. In vain, 
also, are, our protestations of love for the Union, unless we 
show our love by not obstructing the Fugitive Slave Law, 
by refraining from all debates in Congress offensive to any 
constituency, and from all Congressional discrimination be- 
tween slave States and free, in regard to present territory, 
or future acquisitions. 

§ 12. The conclusion. 

Politicians who excite each other in Congressional ^de- 
bate, are prone to mistake for puBlic feeling what is only 
an effect of their own position. The people of the North 
cared nothing last winter what terms of compromise should 
be concocted, so long as the terms would restore peace ; 
and they care nothing now for the respective measures, 
except as they shall prove effectual towards harmony. In 
truth, the North had, last winter, no surrenders to make, 



THE PHILOSOPHY OF THE AMERICAN UNION. 47 

but a relinquishment of their own unv/arrantable interfer- 
ence with the domestic relations of other men, as free as 
themselves, and as capable of self-government. If these 
views impute too much good sense to the JNorth, and espe- 
cially if we are not prepared for such a reversal of our con- 
duct as is urged in the foregoing leaves, we are not equal 
to the exigency of the times, or to live under a Confeder- 
ate Government such as no preceding people ever enjoyed. 
The South, even now, show a placability (as they have 
during our whole period of encroachments) which nothing 
can cause but a great love for the Union. We may, there- 
fore, under a persistence in our errors, enjoy a truce for a 
season,— but no enduring union. With the restoratives 
herein recommended, and a strict construction of the Con- 
stitution in all new legislation, we may safely expect long 
years of internal tranquillity. Geographical divisions, 
which constitute " the madness of the many for the gain 
of a few," will fade away. No causes will exist for reject- 
ing new confederates, by local jealousies in regard to the 
balance of sectional strength ; and we may diffuse the bles- 
sings of our system illimitably, Canada-ward or Mexico- 
ward, to the advantage of ourselves, and the happiness of 
others. In the language, therefore, of inspiration, (and no 
language is too sacred,) placed before you this day are 
good and evil. Choose ye. 



J 



48 OUR POLITICAL DISORDERS AND THEIR REMEDY. 



OM POLITICAL DISOEDERS AND THEIR REMEDY.* 

§ 1. The abolition of slavery most, people suppose would 
exempt our Union from discord ;. but the Canadas wrangle 
as fiercely about the location of their capital as we do 
about slavery. If Mason and Dixon's Line separated Ko- 
manisQi from Protestantism, the divisions would antagonize 
about religion ; and the same would occur if Mason and 
Dixon's Line divided old school Presbyterianism from new 
school, orthodox Quakers from Hicksites, teetotalism from 
free-drinkism. The first contentions of our Union related 
to the difference in size and population of the different 
States, and when Washington warned us against sectional 
agitations, slav^xy was a Northern institution as much as 
a Southern. Were the North and the South, to separate, 
neither division would remain long without antagonistic 
agitations, just as every State has its intestine contests, 
every neighborhood its feuds, every family its heart-burn- 
ings. Our sectional antagonisms were as savage as they 
are now, before the existence of Kansas ; before Sumner 
was knocked down ; before the repeal of the Missouri 
Compromise ; before the new Fugitive Slave Law. What we 
sha-ll antagonize about at any given moment, will depend on 
circumstances ; but when we deem any particular subject 
the cause of our trouble, we are mistaking for a cause what 
is only an effect of man's organization^ So Millerism, 
Spiritualism, Clairvoyance, Table-tippings, cause not the 
insanity which a man of any such belief evinces. They 
are only the occasions which excite insanity in persons 
organically predisposed thereto ; hence the people who be- 

* Published in 1856. 



OUR POLITICAL DISORDERS AND THEIR REMEDY. 49 

came insane on Millerism, become insane on Spiritualism, 
Table-tippings, and kindred excitements that successively 
arise; and the men inordinately antagonistic as abolition- 
ists, were equally violent as anti-Masons, pioneer stage 
men, anti-Sunday mail men, Native Americans, Maine- 
lavvists and Know-Kothings. When any new excitement 
is commencing, men's antecedents can foreshadow who 
are to become its proselytes, and the degree of extravagance 
each will exhibit. 

§ 2. Another of our difficulties is the sectional organiza- 
tion of Congress, no Senator or Representative being eli- 
gible thereto, except of the State in which he lives, and 
practically as a champion of its prejudices or interests for 
a protective tariff, or against — for or against internal im- 
provements, w'ai, peace, the acquisition of new territory, 
&c. During our Mexican war, a Senator imprecated on 
our invading troops, that they should be greeted with 
bloody hands and hospitable graves ; a speech which en- 
deared him to his State, though morally treason to the Con- 
federacy. No President has ever been made from the 
great orators of Congress ; the eloquence which makes 
them idols of a locality detracting from their general avail- 
ability. Every interest is represented in Congress except 
the interest of the whole ; hence the army, navy, fortifica- 
tions, and other Federal objects, are the last that can gain 
attention. But the most disturbing effect of the sectional- 
ism of Congress is man's combativeness. If we see a 
casual street fight of two dogs, we instinctively sympathize 
with one in preference to the other, or side against both in 
favor of peace. Nothing is more common on such occa-^ 
sions, than a general melee among the spectators — the par- 
tisans of one dog knocking down the partisans of the 
other, and the friends of peace knocking down the partisans 



50 OUR POLITICAL DISORDERS AND THEIR REMEDY. 

of both the contestants. We need not wonder, therefore, 
that the meeting of every Congress is the signal for agita- 
tion over the whole Confederacy, in relation to grievances 
of whose existence we were not previously aware, till we 
become in a ferment of artificial excitement, which changes 
its object as Congressional gladiatorship flashes upon us 
hourly from the electric telegraph. 

In the infancy of physical knowledge, eclipses portended 
some national calamity, but experience has manifested they 
are but necessary results of the independent revolutions 
of the celestial bodies ; so in the infancy of our Republic, we 
deem every sectional strife portentous of a dissolution 
of the Union, but we may find they are but necessary 
results of the independent individuality of the States of 
our Confederacy. Under an unrestrained liberty of speech, 
and of the press, like ours, the French Empire could not 
exist a month. Probably our States may in time become 
equally schooled to bear the sectional agitation of Con- 
gress, so that it will become as little disturbing as tlie 
license of the press, which no man is so inflammatory as to 
much heed. 

§ 3. Another of our difficulties is, conflicting notions res- 
pecting our nationality. Slavery is a reproach to our na- 
tion says one man, while other persons insist that Southern 
slavery is as little a reproach to New- York as the slavery 
of Morocco. The disputants differ little in their estimate 
of slavery, but they estimate differently our nationality. 
The ancient philosopher, who tried to find which was the 
heap in the separate grains of a bushel of wheat, might be 
equall}^ puzzled to find the United States ; for he would 
find only Massachusetts, New-York, Vermont, &c. In 
view of this peculiarity, DeTocqueville has well remarked 
that the United States is a government, not a nation — an 



OUR POLITICAL DISORDEES AND THEIR REMEDY. 51 

ideality that exists in only the mind. Oar nationality being 
thus unique, the accountability of New- York for the slavery 
of Kansas is not ascertainable by our national relation to 
Kansas, till we determine first whether our nationality 
gives New- York a legal voice on the subject. To ascer- 
tain this we resort to the Constitution, which fails in de- 
ciding the question — some persons expounding the Consti- 
tution as permitting interference by the Congressional re- 
presentatives of New- York, and others expounding it as 
denying to Congress any voice in the matter. 

§ 4. But could the Constitution decide the foregoing 
question, our condition would not be mended ; and our be- 
lief to the contrary is a more disturbing error than any 
I have specified. Men may be killed by eating what is 
sanctioned by the best physicians, and our Union may be 
conserved or separated by measures sanctioned by the best 
constitutional casuistry. . An excise law of undisputed 
constitutionality, produced a rebellion during the Adminis- 
tration of Washington, and a constitutional tariflf produced 
an incipient rebellion under the Administration of Jackson. 
The power of peace and war are among the inevitable ne- 
cessities of any Confederacy, but New-Englanders felt so 
aggrieved by the War of 1812, that they called a Conven- 
tion at Hartford to separate from the Union, " peacefully 
if they could, forcibly if they must." Nor was our Mexican 
war less instructive of the inefficacy of mere constitutional 
sanction to preserve the Union, though opposition in that 
war extended to only moral treason by encouraging the 
public enemy, obstructing the transmission of troops, and 
procrastinating needful legislation. The constitutionality 
of an evil may soothe its infliction, yet no compact, not 
even marriage, can bind parties who find the bonds sub- 
versive of happiness and prosperity. 



52 OUR POLITICAL DISORDERS AND THEIR REMEDY. 

§ 5. Now, if gold is more valuable than the shape of the 
ingot, the Union is more valuable than the Constitution. 
Suppose, then, no constitutional difficulty could be al- 
leged against the universal suppression of domestic 
slavery by Congress, the question would still remain, 
whether the exercise of the power would promote or 
impair " the more perfect Union," which was the main 
design of the Constitution, and which is as superior there- 
to, as fruit is superior to the seed from which it sprang. 
A man, therefore, who looks at only the Constitution for 
his duty to the Union, may submit to the requirements of 
the Fugitive Slave Law, or evade them by force or cunning, 
according to his constitutional views ; but a man patrioti- 
cally disposed to the Union, will govern himself towards 
the law by the effect which his conduct will produce on the 
fraternal feelings of the States. 

§ 6. Satirists often contrast the compliances of courtship 
with the tyranny of marriage. May not the compromises 
which alone confederated the States be contrasted also 
with the uncompromising acts by Congress that some of us 
desire. But the marriage tie is not always secure against 
subsequent abuse, nor is our Union. Nationalities as large 
as our own, have failed of conservation ; while we possess 
elements of disruption which no other aggregated nation 
ever possessed, our States severally containing all the ma- 
chinery, civil, military, and judicial, of independent sover- 
eignties, with revenues and affectionate subjects. Twenty- 
seven millions of people are thus situated. At the census 
of 1860, we shall number thirty-one millions ; in 1870, 
forty-two millions; and before the infants of to-day shall 
attain to middle life, our population will be a hundred mil- 
lions. 



OUR POLITICAL DISOEDERS AND THEIR REMEDY. 63 

§7. The immediate disruption of our Union may be im» 
practicable under a determined resistance bj the General 
Government ; but to be permanent, the Confederation 
must be desirable to all the Confederates, difficult as this 
ever must be from the diversity of their climates, produc- 
tions, and social customs ; hence were we governed like 
England, by a single legislature, our Confederacy would 
not exist a year. When Congress exercised its undoubted 
right to prescribe the time for electing Congressional re- 
presentatives, an infraction of the law had to be disre- 
garded till the States chose to conform, and like conces- 
sions have been numerous. Providentially, the diversi- 
ties of prejudices and interests in our Union are founded 
on diversities of locality ; so that Congressional legislation 
need not interfere therewith, if Congress will permit each 
locality to legislate for itself in all particulars but the few 
that are indispensable to the General Government. As 
Congress shall thus circumscribe its power, the yoke of 
the Union will be proportionabl}" ungalling; and a non- 
exercise of disturbing power is only a remission of it from 
Congress to the separate States and Territories more par- 
ticularly interested therein, and who possess all legislative 
and sovereign power to act as they shall wish. The in- 
terdict includes all the disputed construction of harbors 
and improvement of rivers. Had Congress steadily re- 
fused such legislation, our States would have depended on 
themselves therein, as they depend for railroads, canals, 
and telegraphs ; and rivers and harbors w^ould have been 
improved beyond what Congress could accomplish with its 
best efforts. The same may be said of a protective tariff. 
New- York protected by a bounty its Onondaga salt, and 
it may give the same protection to any other manufac- 



54 OUR POLITICAL DISORDERS AND THEIR REMEDY, 

ture ; hence New- York need not abandon the Union for 
any non-protective action by Congress ; except that were 
it out of the Union, it might impose a duty on rival impor- 
tations. But the duty would operate as a tax on the con- 
sumers of the imported article, as burdensome as a bounty 
to be raised by a tax for the benefit of the home manufac- 
ture. 

§ 8. But the best dissuasive against contentious legisla- 
tion by Congress remains to be stated : — If every man could 
act as he pleases, personal freedom would be perfect, and 
the nearest approach thereto is, that every locality shall be 
uncontrolled by every other. After the French dethroned 
Louis Phillippe, their first act was to enfranchise all slaves 
in the French colonies, irrespective of the wishes of the 
colonists. The end may justify the means when a man 
looks only superficially, but whoever imposes his will over 
the will of another is so far a tyrant ; and if tyranny is to 
be estimated by the quality of its acts, our theory of gov- 
ernment is abandoned. The world has ever been full of 
patriots who would control others ; but the problem our 
country is solving is, whether man can be satisfied with 
controlling himself, and permitting a like liberty to all 
otliers. No virtue is so cheap as the denouncement of other 
men's vices. When the Missouri Compromise was re- 
pealed, to enable each organized locality to decide on its 
own domestic institutions, some citizens of Irish nationality 
deemed the repeal an offence against liberty, forgetting 
that England's crime against Ireland consists in only a 
refusal to permit Ireland to legislate for itself. If the prin- 
ciple of self-government is to be subordinated to the sub- 
ject on which it happens to operate, why should England, 
who possesses the power, not legislate for Ireland in mat- 



OUR POLITICAL DISORDERS AND THEIR REMEDY. 55 

ters which England may deem as important as slavery ? 
Some Germans of ISTew-York were also clamorous, be- 
cause the people of Kansas were entrusted with the liberty 
of fashioning their own domestic institutions ; when, how- 
ever, the Maine Law undertook to decide for these Ger- 
mans, whether they should or should not indulge in lager beer, 
they, like most other men, entertained no good opinion of 
the law, as they felt the halter drawn around their own liber- 
ties. 

§ 9. But though madness occasionally makes suicides of 
individuals, self-preservation is nature's general law, and 
on it we safely rely for the perpetuity of our species ; so 
political madness occasionally threatens the subversion of 
all the foregoing principles of Congressional forbearance, 
on which depend the peace and permanence of our Confed- 
eracy ; but self-preservation is applicable to nationalities 
also, and on it we may safely rely for the perpetuity of our 
institutions. On this principle, the almost uniform success 
of the Democratic party can be accounted for. They 
have always been the party of union and the countr} , in 
opposition to those who in the second war with England, 
and in the war with Mexico, sided with the public enemy ; 
'Ti opposition, also, to those who struggled against the ac- 
quisition of Louisiana, FJorida, Texas, California, and New- 
Mexico, and who sided with the United States Bank in its 
contest against the Government. If a fester has ever been 
on the body politic, who but the Democratic party has 
medicated it ? Who would not have known that Demo- 
crats were not the authors of the Maine Law, were he in 
Japan when the first announcement of such a law should 
have reached him ? Who would not have known also, 
that Democrats were not the secret plotters to debase emi- 



56 OUR POLITICAL DISORDERS AND THEIR REMEDY. 

grants, that, with their sucklings, were fleeing to us from 
European bondage? And which of us would not have 
known that Democrats w^ere not the party to proscribe a 
man for his creed, and to recall from the dark ages a cry 
against Popery ? li, also, anything disgraceful can be 
found in our history, you may be sure it originated while 
the opponents of Democracy possessed power. For in- 
stance, the treaty of 1842, by which, on a pretended claim 
of England, w^e retroceded to her a portion of Maine, to 
better England's military connection between New-Bruns- 
wick and Canada ; bound ourselves also to keep an armed 
squadron on the pestilential coast of Africa, as a means to 
free our ships from the right of search which England other- 
wise insisted on ; and in 1850, bound ourselves not to colo- 
nize any part of Central America; thereby creating (and 
I suspect for that object) an insurmountable barrier against 
annexation thitherward, should the people desire annexa- 
tion at some future day. I may include in the category 
every depredation on the Public Treasury by heads of de- 
partments. Poor Gardiner, who killed himself on convic- 
tion of frauds in the Mexican Indemnity Fund, left 
unpunished Cabinet Ministers more guilty than himself. 

When some few years ago, France and England insulted 
us by proposing to apply to Cuba the interdict which we 
imposed on ourselves with regard to Central America, 
a Whig Secretary of State declined the alliance, and the 
fame of his refusal filled the country with his praise. Had 
a Democratic Secretary of State performed the same duty, 
nobody would have deemed the act deserving of special 
praise ; but coming from an anti-Democratic source, the 
act was deemed as meritorious as the winning of a foot 
race by a cripple. History accords thus a few acts by 
which anti-Democratic statesmen have earned a national 



OUK POLITICAL DISORDEES AND THEIR REMEDY. 57 

desert, but the specific acts occurred when the actors broke 
from their party. 

§10. But self-preservation was never so directly at issue 
as in the approaching Presidential election. England and 
France, after warring for ages, found lately a common 
danger in Russia, and this soon united them in friendship. 
Every man holds thus some persons as enemies ; but when 
a comjiion danger renders these enemies needful to each 
other, they become friends. The same principle has oper- 
ated every four years in binding our States together. The 
Korth and South, after defying each other for years, find 
the need of each other when a President is to be elected, 
and the common need revives a common friendship. An 
attempt, however, is now being made to destroy this har- 
monizing process, and in its stead to array the North against 
the South in a sectional fight, wherein one is to be con- 
queror and the other the conquered. When a man is 
nominated for the Presidency, his character is deteriorated 
by every eflfort of our unrestrained press; but in a sectional 
contest like the present, the worse evil is beginning to exhib- 
it itself— of a blackening at the North the character of the 
South, and a blackening at the South tiie character of the 
North. 

§11. When a criminal's offences are about to be expiated 
on the gallows, the catastrophe has been arrived at by 
approaches so gradual that he would have rejected it as 
impossible, had the fate been early foretold ; so when 
Washington warned us against parties founded on geogra- 
phical distinctions, the generation of his day were inclined 
to say with Hazael, of old — " is thy servant a dog that he 
should do this great thing ?" Still, after sixty years ofahnost 
imperceptible gradations, we are arrived at the worst phase 
of Washington's warning predictions. Indeed, no man is so 

4 



young as not to remember when he could as creditably 
have denounced a future life, as advocate the sectional 
divorce which the coming election is sought to substantiate. 
A man in a passion usually supposes every body sympa- 
thizes with him, while probably they are only wondering 
at his madness. Something like this is the condition of 
sectionalists. They fill our bookstores with the picture of 
their candidate on horseback passing over the rocky moun- 
tains, in the attitude of Napoleon on crossing the Alps, and 
they believe that our yeomanry are to be seduced by such 
a show. The candidates are nothing in (he coming elec- 
tion. The principles they represent are the polar star to 
which patriotism will alone direct its eye, and I scorn to 
praise or dispraise either candidate. Finally, the coming 
contest may be summed up in a few words. Our country 
has long been agitated by an extreme Southern doctrine, 
which insists that the people of a territory cannot exclude 
slavery, how much soever they may desire to exclude it; 
and by an extreme Northern doctrine, that the people of a 
territory shall not admit slavery, how much soever they de- 
sire the admission. The two extremes are equally fierce, and 
would cleave our Confederacy asunder, — divide it in twain, 
like the false mother in the Bible, who would divide the living 
child rather than yield her pretensions ; but the Democratic 
party, like the true mother, are willing to save the Union, 
on the middle ground of letting each locality decide for 
itself the slavery question. This alone is the issue of the 
coming election ; and hereafter the hopelessness of riding 
into power on the honest sympathies of the North against 
slavery, and the honest prejudices, therefore, of the South 
will become so apparent, that we may well hope the dis- 
turbing topic, instead of being perpetuated and inveterated 
by the success of our opponents, will, by their defeat, be 
driven out of Congress for ever. 



THE PRINCIPLES OF AMERICAN LIBERTY. 59 



THE PEINCIPLES OF AMEEICAN LIBEETI.^ 

Sec. 1. We are apt to regard as a severe tax, that some 
men of every town are compelled, as jurors, to decide the 
diversified questions of life, liberty, and property, that are ; 
several times every year, discussed in the law courts of 
every county ; forgetting that a vast amount of legal 
knowledge is thus diffused into society. We are apt to 
regard as another evil, partisan strife, which, at every elec- 
tion, arrays neighbor against neighbor ; forgetting that we 
thereby learn the power of rulers and the rights of the 
people. The legal and political knowledge thus forced 
upon our population could not be spared without a greater 
damage to our practical intelligence than a destruction of 
our common-school system, how highly soever we properly 
prize it. 

§ 2. While these considerations should induce us to bear 
patiently each other's partisan infirmities, the instructive- 
ness of political discussions is impaired by the difficulty 
which each party experiences in reaching its antagonists — 
the newspapers of every party being read by only its own 
partisans, and every public meeting being composed of 
those only who are predisposed to believe what the orators 
of the meeting are to inculcate. But a still worse conse- 
quence of the exclusiveness exists in the unfairness of 
statement and unsoundness of logic which characterize 
such newspapers and orators, and which escape detection 
and exposure by reason that they are read and heard by 
only those who exclude all other means of political infor- 
mation. The impunity of detection corrupts the teachers 
and infuriates the taught ; for, while the taught are gradually 

■^ Published September 2nd, 1856. 



60 THE PRINCIPLES OF AMERICAN LIBERTY. 

wrought into fanaticism by distorted truths and false con- 
clusions, the teachers are incited to greater distortions and 
more illogical conclusions. The evils never developed 
themselves so glaringly as at the present moment ; one of 
our parties arguing the coming election on the abstract 
demerits of slavery and its local extension — questions 
which the election, however it may eventuate, can influence 
no more than it can the serfdom of Russia, to say nothing 
of the impolicy and injustice of our interference in the 
domestic concerns of another and remote locality. The 
Free State men in Kansas are not compelled to hold slaves. 
They are represented as oppressed and down-trodden 
thereby, while their only real grief is their inability to 
control other men, who desire to hold slaves, till slavery 
shall be abolished by the Territorial Legislature. Such is 
the whole matter which is shaking our Union to its centre, 
with this addition, that the slaves in question will continue 
to be slaves, as they always have been, whether they are 
removed to Kansas or retained in Missouri. Unfortunately, 
only comparatively few men possess much skill in reason- 
ing, while all possess feeUngs, sympathie-:, and passions ; 
hence political discussions, especially those of the present 
canvass, are addressed to the emotional instincts of the 
hearers, rather than to their intellects, and with the intent 
to inflame rather than to instruct. So vigorously is this 
bad mode now pursued, that a portion of our citizens deem 
their Southern brothers monsters that cannot too cruelly be 
hated or despoiled ; and the sad spectacle has been exhib- 
ited of Northern clergymen sending rifles into Kansas for 
the purpose of murder — joking, also, on the contemplated 
slaughter, as the Robesperians of France joked, by desig- 
nating their bloody guillotine as " the little repubhcan 
window for aristocrats to peep through." 



THE PRINCIPLES OF AMERICAN LIBERTY. 61 

§ 3. But our constitutions, by giving an equal vote to 
the ignorant and the intelligent, the selfish and the patriotic, 
the vicious and the virtuous, must ever subject our elec- 
tions to the passions of the weak, the prejudices of the 
ignorant, and the cupidity of the selfish. These evils the 
enemies among us of equal rights always held up, to defeat 
the diffusion of political equality, which the Democratic 
party alone advocated, and has brought to the condition in 
which it exists among us. True to its instincts, it now 
opposes Know-Nothingism, which seeks to circumscribe 
religious liberty by placing disabilities on Catholics, and to 
circumscribe political liberty by placing disabilities on the 
naturalization of foreigners. It opposes, also, Republican- 
ism, which seeks to circumscribe civil liberty by taking 
from the freemen of Kansas the power over slavery. 
Democracy assimilates human government to the govern- 
ment of God, which is the highest type of Democracy : — 
He making his sun to shine alike on rich and poor, good 
and bad, wise and simple ; leaving every person free to 
work out his own salvation, instead of withholding the 
means of intoxication, lest a man should become a drunk- 
ard, — w^itbholding religious liberty, lest he should become 
an infidel or heretic, — withholding the means of acquiring 
slaves, lest he should become a slaveholder, — withholding 
political power from the foreign-born, lest they should use 
it ignorantly. The first constitutions of all our States 
were full of such limitations, together with restrictions that 
deemed the poor ineligible for any office, or to vote there- 
for at any election ; thus adding to the natural disadvan- 
tages of poverty, the artificial disadvantage of political 
degradation ; and to the natural disadvantages of a foreign 
nativity, the artificial blight of perpetual alienage. To the 
patriots of our Revolution we are indebted for only the 



62 THE PRINCIPLES OF AMERICAN LIBERTY. 

means of liberty ; while for the equality of privileges which 
all enjoy, the people of all the States are indebted to Demo- 
cracy, that, step by step, and item by item, wrenched tlie 
privileges from opponents under multitudinous names; for, 
as the king of Moab thought God might change his purpose 
if invoked from a new locality, the opponents of political 
equality have continually thought the Democracy could be 
vanquished if attacked by a new name. 

§ 4. But though Democracy has thus obtained equal 
privileges for all men, and now alone maintains them 
unimpaired, it expects to see some persons of foreign birth 
marshallinoj themselves with banners, fifes and drums, to 
vote against the party to which they owe the right to vote 
at all ; it expects to see some religionists voting for those 
who burnt their churches, destroyed their convents, and 
outraged their female seminaries ; it expects to see some 
moneyless men voting against the party which alone re- 
moved from our elections all property disqualifications; it 
expects to see some men who prize an exemption from the 
Maine Law, vote against the party which alone has saved 
and can save them therefrom ; it expects to see some cler- 
gymen voting against the party which removed from the 
Constitution of New- York the sarcastic declaration of 
sixty-nine years standing, that, " being dedicated to the 
service of God and the cure of souls, ministers of the gos- 
pel should not be diverted from the great duties of their 
functions ; and, therefore, under no pretence whatever, 
should hold any civil or military office or place ;" it ex- 
pects to see some " free thinkers" vote against the party 
which prevented iafidels from being any longer covertly 
punished for their infidelity, by a disqualification from 
being believed under oath as witnesses These adverse 
votes are necessary consequences of the liberty — civil, reli- 



THE PKINCIPLES OF AMEEICAN LIBERTY. 63 

gious, and political — which Democracy has secured for all ; 
relying that at least a majority of our citizens will be wise 
and patriotic enough to protect the privileges after their 
obtainment. We expect too much of human nature when 
we expect for the support of liberty many more than a 
majority, — liberty having never been lost in any country 
except by the co-operation of those who were to lose it. 
No Maine law has ever been passed or will be, but by the 
co-operation of brewers, distillers, grocers, and tiplers ; no 
new disqualifying naturalization law will ever be passed 
but by the assistance of naturalized citizens, — and the men 
who lately were dismissed from the United States armories 
because Congress refused to pass the Army Bill, voted pro- 
bably for the Congressmen who thus unpatriotically injured 
them. But if we deprive men of the power to fool away 
their rights and liberties, we deprive them of liberty. The 
case presents a curious dilemma. We sometimes wonder 
that slaves, when liberated by an invading foe, will desert 
back to their masters, and fiorht ag^ainst their liberators : 
but the foregoing analogous cases, always transpiring in 
our midst, prove that such desertion is common to human 
nature, which crucified the Saviour who came to redeem 
it, and has ever performed much the same for all its great 
benefactors. Even the War of our Independence never 
commanded more than the support of a majority, while our 
second war with England was worse supported ; and in our 
war with Mexico, while our troops captured the whole 
country, and it was ours by the law of nations, our Govern- 
ment, by means of a Congressional withholding of sup'plies, 
^nd by poUtical harangues from the pulpits that now send 
rifles to Kansas, and, in our war with England, said that a 
religious people could not thank God for victories gained 
by blood, was literally compelled to purchase a peace at 



64 THE PEINCIPLES OF AMERICAN LIBERTY. 

many millions of dollars, and surrendering back all our 
conquests but what was deemed a barren waste ; lately- 
purchasing back, for ten millions of dollars, a small piece 
of the territory thus factiously and gratuitously surrendered. 
§ 5. In equalizing religious liberty by giving to every 
man freedom of conscience, how perniciously soever he 
ay abuse it ; in equalizing political liberty, by making 
every man eligible to hold all offices and elect all officers ; 
in equalizing civil liberty by giving to every man entire 
control over his conduct, except that he shall not injure 
other men, — the Democratic party has not always seen 
clearly the requirement of its own principles, but has 
groped its way by such lights as it possessed from time to 
time. We owe to the progressive nature of knowledge 
that Democracy now sees distinctly, that the highest attain- 
able civil liberty for all, consists in permitting every 
organized locality, Territorial and State, to regulate its own 
domestic institutions, slavery included. The doctrine ori- 
ginated in our own State;* and self-complacency may well 
become New-Yorkers, when the election of Buchanan 
shall evince that the doctrine is sanctioned by our Confede- 
racy. It constitutes the sole issue of the coming election, 
and no doubt will be sustained by a large electoral majority. 
But the election of Buchanan is not enough ; he must have 
a Congress to support him, and State Legislatures to sustain 
Congress. We must show that enough thinking men exist 
among us to indulge weak brethren — Abolitionists, Free- 
soilers, Know-Nothings, Maine Lawists, political clergy- 
men, &c. — in all the vagaries of fanatacism ; to indulge 
foreign-born citizens in all the mistakes consequent t» 
ignorance of our complicated governments ; to indulge 
the most licentious press^the world ever saw, in its tirades 

* See " The Wilmot Proviso," p. 9. 



THE YETO POWER OF THE PRESIDENT. 65 

of disunion, illogic, and madness ; to indulge even the 
paper self-called the head of American journalism, in its 
licentious advocacy of a union of all discordant factions 
for the sole purpose of securing the spoils of office ; and 
finally, to indulge in his dilemma even the smitten Senator 
who will not oblige his political friends by dying, or his 
political enemies by getting well, but keeps both results in 
painful suspense. 



THE YETO POWEE OE THE PKESIDENT.* 

Every bill which shall have passed both Houses of 
Congress, must be presented to the President before it can 
become a law : — " If he approve, he shall sign it ; but if 
not, he shall return it, with his objections, to that House in 
which it shall have originated." This simple mandate of 
the Constitution, a latitudinarian construction attempts to 
dwindle into a power of rejection, only when a bill shall 
be unconstitutional ; or the two Houses of Congress shall 
have passed it without due deliberation. To thus relax the 
veto seems to diminish the powers of Government, and we 
become surprised at finding the relaxation among the tenets 
of politicians who characteristically enlarge the powers of 
Government ; but our surprise will cease if we remember 
that the relaxation diminishes restraints on the Legislature, 
the only usurping branch of our Government ; hence the 
means of usurpation become increased, just in proportion 
as the veto power becomes diminished. 

A President who subordinates Ms will to the will of Con- 
gress, subordinates the 'people to their servants. 

A Representative in Congress represents the two hundred 

* Published February 1st, 1851. 

4* 



bb THE YETO POWER OF THE PRESIDENT. 

and thirty-third part of the United States. His constitu- 
ents are locally contiguous, and he regards supremely their 
interests. A Senator represents the sixty-second part of 
the Union — the half of some one State, to which, alOne, he 
is amenable ; and its wishes control his conduct. But the 
President represents the whole Union — States and people. 
To him, therefore, belongs properly a supervision over 
every bill, before it shall become a law. His disapproval 
of a bill is national, not personal ; just as the sentence of 
death pronounced on a convict, is a fiat of law spoken 
through a judge, who, personally, would shed no blood, A 
President should lose himself in his office, not lose his office 
in himself — or the humility of the officer will humble the 
office, and humble the people whom the office typifies. The 
humility of a clergyman may well incline him to refrain 
from censuring sins, sinner as he is in common with his 
congregation ; but he censures in the name of his Divine 
Master. So a house of worship — stone, brick, or wood — 
challenges all men within it to stand uncovered, not in 
reverence of the structure, but of the Deity to whom it is 
dedicated. 

A Veto is an appeal to the peojjie as supreme arbiter. 

In law-suits, a demurrer arrests the proceedings till the 
Court shall decide the merits of the objection, and a Pre- 
sidential veto arrests legislation till the people shall decide 
thereon at the next Presidential election. A veto is, there- 
fore, in honor of the people, as a court of last resort. 
General Jackson thus considered it when, July 10th, 1832, 
he vetoed a re-charter of the United States Bank. Instead, 
then, of being a " one man power," as its enemies delight 
to call it, a veto is the highest privilege that pertains to 
the people. Congress felt this, when they presented to 
General Jackson the above Bank Bill just before the expi- 



THE VETO POWER OF THE PRESIDENT. 



67 



ration ol his first official term, and when he was a candi- 
date for re-election They knew he would veto it, and they 
wanted to subject his veto to the review of the people. 
The case constituted a direct appeal to the people by Con- 
gress and the President ; and admirably illustrates the 
power conferred on the people by a proper exercise of the 
veto. 

A Presidential Veto is the people's only security against 
Congressional venality and usurpation. 

The people may remove a Representative every second 
year, and a Senator every sixth year ; but a re-ciiarter of 
the United States Bank could not not have been corrected 
by a removal of all who had voted for it. The contract 
would have been irrevocable, had it not been arrested by 
a veto ; and such are all the oases to which a veto has been 
applied; Had Monroe not vetoed tbe Cumberland Road 
Bill in 1822, or Jackson the Maysville Stock Subscription 
in 1830, who sees not the extent to which such legislation 
would have been carried by Congress, whose organization 
favors such legislation-the roads whiob it should con- 
struct in any State, provoking every other state to procure 
like legislation ? Nay, the representative of every congres- 
sionardistrict would be ambitious to procure for his locality 
what any other representative had procured ; hence, every 
step in such legislation would produce others in a compound 
progression, till legislation would degenerate intoascramble 
for spoils Nor should we omit among the advantages ot 
the veto, its check on the venality of so promiscuous and 
numerous a body as Congress,-to say nothing of l^'gher 
officials The Galphin disclosures of last year shocked 
morality ; but who can help believing that the GalphLU case 
was more peculiar in its exposure than its occurrence ? 
The revival of old and often rejected claims against the 



68 THE VETO POWER OF THE PRESIDENT. 

Government is become common ; and charity tries in vain 
to suppose that the claims are advocated disinterestedly in 
Congress. The veto of President Polk saved the country 
in his day from French Claim spoliators ; but his veto is 
more effectual in showing how a President ought to act, 
than it will be in finding imitators. The statute of limita- 
tions which every State enacts, is not designed to prevent 
the payment of just demands, but to provide against the 
evanescence of testimony ; so, if a public claim seems just 
after fifty years of rejection, we ought to infer that the 
facts are forgotten which showed its injustice, not that our 
predecessors were disinclined to be just. Legislatures can- 
not be bound by a statute of limitation, but they ought to 
be bound by the principle which alone makes such statutes 
just in any case. 

The Veto is powerless for evil. 

We often hear that a King of England would lose his 
head should he thwart, by veto, the British Parliament 
The king, however, retains his position for life, and his 
veto is not susceptible of a quadrennial review by the peo- 
ple, like a President's ; nor reversible, by a two-third vote 
of the Legislature. Besides, the king vetoes to retain power, 
which the people are seeking, through Parliament, to wrest 
from him ; but a President vetoes to disclaim power and 
patronage, that Congress are attempting to invest him 
with by wresting it from- the people. Such has been the 
character of all past Presidential vetoes ; and an exercise 
of the power evinces a victory by duty over personal ease, 
as may be inferred from the few vetoes which have been 
pronounced during our sixty-two years of national exist- 
ence ; and inferred from nothing more clearly than from 
President Polk's sanction of the Oregon Territorial Bill, 
with the Wilmot Proviso superadded, and which uncharac- 



THE VE;T0 power of IHE PRESIDENT. 69 

teristic sanction he in vain sought to justify by an apologe- 
tic explanation. The people need not, therefore, fear that 
vetoing will be excessive. Its exercise demands rather 
the encouragement of every patriot ; especially, as its most 
mistaken application can delay but briefly what it may 
improperly arrest. 

The Veto performs for Legislation what Chancery performs 
for the Common Law. 

President Fillmore's implied declaration to veto a repeal 
of the Fugitive Slave Law, exemplifies, in its salutary in- 
fluence over fifteen States, another utility of the veto power, 
especially when contrasted with the uneasiness which they 
evinced previously, by reason of the tenets of his party — 
that no veto was proper except against unconstitutional 
legislation. For nearly fifty years the slave States have 
deemed the veto their surest reliance against Congressional 
aggression ; hence the uniform desire of the South, that 
the President should be a Southron. This, more than his 
victories, caused the election of Gen. Taylor ; nor could 
Van Buren have been elected in 1837, had he not declared 
himself " a Northern man with Southern feelings." Indeed, 
the veto is admirably adapted to mitigate the tyranny of a 
legislative majority, when the tyranny is to be exercised, 
as with us, over States organized severally, with all the 
machinery of sovereignty,— arsenals, munitions, revenues, 
a legislature, judiciary, militia, and citizens accustomed to 
local obedience ; and when, accordingly, Congressional ty- 
ranny is Hable to disrupt the Union. In England, where 
a veto is practically unknown, no such urgency for its ex- 
ercise exists ; for, how numerous soever may become the 
victims of a legislative majority, they possess no means of 
counter-aggression but unorganized brute riot and impotent 
clamor. The Court of Chancery is said ** to break the 
teeth of the Common Law," which would compel a man 



70 THE VETO POWER OF THE PRESIDENT. 

to pa}^ two thousand dollars, as a penalty, for not pay- 
ing one thousand on a stipulated day. The Presidential 
Veto tempers, with equal beneficence, the tyranny of a 
Congressional majority, which can, by a plurality of one 
member, abolish slavery in the District of Columbia, enforce 
the Wilmot Proviso on the people of a new territory, or 
outrage otherwise the feelings of fifteen States. 

Unconstitutional Legislation is reinediahle without a Veto. 
The judiciary power of the United States extends " to 
all cases in law and equity, arising under the laws ;" — and 
to insure impartiality in the judges, they "hold their offices 
during good behaviour," and receive a compensation which 
cannot be diminished during their continuance in office. 
JNow, as no act of Congress can affect an individual, ex- 
cept as he may be punished judicially for disobedience, he 
possesses in the judiciary as good a shield against uncon- 
stitutional legislation, as he possesses for the security of 
his life, liberty, and property. To say, therefore, with 
some politicians, that the veto shall be used only to pre- 
vent unconstitutional legislation, is to assimilate the veto 
to the fifth wheel of a coach, — which is proverbially use- 
less. 

Co7iclusion. 

But the above politicians fail to explain why a President 
must not deem the constitutional knowledge of Congress 
better than his own, as well as its deliberate judgment in 
other matters. In short, the President's intellect is para- 
mount in both cases for one reason only, — the Constitution 
makes it paramount. He must approve or disapprove ; and 
if, in any case, he subordinates his judgment to the will of 
Congress, he commits the offence of respecting Congress 
more than he respects the Constitution ; and it becomes 
wounded in its most delicate and vital part, by him who 
has been selected as its defender. 



71 



THE PEESIDEXT'S CONSTITUTIOML ADVISERS.* 

Our Constitution says : '' The Executive power shall be 
vested in a President of the United States." He need con- 
sult nobody in the exercise of his duties, though " he nriay 
require the opinion, in writing, of the principal officer in 
each of the Executive Departments, upon any subject 
relating to the duties of their respective offices;" but now, 
such officers constitute themselves a cabinet council, and, 
like a British Cabinet, assume the Presidential functions, 
thereby committing a usurpation which no sanction of the 
President can legalize. But the illegality of the practice is 
its least evil. A British cabinet, being recognized as crown 
advisers, act responsibly, while ours, being a volunteer con- 
clave, are like the cloud which followed in the rear of the 
Israelites, — they screen the President, and are themselves 
invulnerable. Nor is this all the evil : — every man's cau- 
tion is heightened ratably, and every man's perceptions are 
ratably sharpened, by the degree of responsibility under 
which he is acting ; hence, when the President transfers 
any of his personal duties to his Secretaries, they will act 
under less responsibility than the President, and therefore 
will act under circumstances less favorable to wisdom. 
But even a responsible cabinet possesses disadvantages in 
contrast with a single Executive. In a council of, say, 
seven men, the responsibility is divided by seven ; and by 
a law of nature, a man's solicitude will be only proportioned 
to his responsibility, and his acuteness will be proportioned 
to his solicitude. A council of seven is, therefore, not a 
lens with a focal power of one multiplied by seven, but 
with a focal power of one divided by seven. The dismis- 
sions from office by President Taylor exemplify one of the 

* Published February, 1851. 



72 THE CONSTITUTIONAL POWEE OF 

practical evils of this innovation. His ante-election dis- 
claimer of removals for partisan differences, induced some 
people to favor his elevation ; and when his post-election 
conduct falsified the expectations therein of the people, the 
discrepancy was attributed to his Secretaries. The people, 
therefore, in a Presidential selection, can no longer exercise 
any control over the principles by which they will be gov- 
erned, but are restricted to a barren choice between the 
persons of rival men of straw. 

In short, we are arrived at a period when the character 
of our Government depends on the secretaries who chance 
to fill the executive offices. We know that the death of a 
recent President proved providential in behalf of public 
tranquillity, by occasioning the removal of a cabinet. A 
President may, doubtless, advise with his officers, and with 
all persons whose opinions may assist his own ; but that 
such advice shall become an admitted executive machinery, 
is to interpose an unconstitutional shield between the Presi- 
dent and the people. 



THE CONSTITUTIONAL POWER OF CONGEESS OYER PUBLIC 
IMPROVEMENTS.^ 

CONSTITUTIONAL KNOWLEDGE INCREASES WITH THE DURA- 
TION OF OUR GOVERNMENT. 

We are prone to suppose, that the higher we ascend 
towards the period when our political Constitution was 
framed, the greater must be the constitutional know- 
ledge of the period ; but the Constitution contains permis- 

* Published Fsbruary 1, 1851 



CONGRESS OVER INTERNAL IMPROVEMENTS. 73 

sions and limitations that were not seen by its framers, and 
oar descendants will understand its scope more definitely 
than we. The like may be said of Christianity, which, by 
the study of eighteen centuries, has received developments 
that render the knowledge therein of a modern divine, 
more comprehensive than the knowledge of the ancient 
Fathers. These consequences result from the nature of lan- 
guage. Every verbal proposition is like a mirror. It 
reflects the lineaments of the man who looks into it ; hence, 
as successive ages of men increase their knowledge by 
study and experience, they see in every verbal proposition, 
what may have been unseen by all their predecessors ; just 
as the Siamese twins can see in a mirror, what was never 
seen previously to their own advent. We need not, there- 
fore, be surprised at the diversity of practice, which our 
Government has exhibited on the constitutionality of public 
improvements, nor at the still conflicting opinions thereon 
of our statesmen. 

f^^Ohedience to the Constitution is more than a moral duty. 

Obedience to the Constitution is not idolatry, but a prin- 
ciple, on which, by the nature of our Confederacy, the dura- 
bility of our Union is connected. The connection is not 
conventional, but organic; like the connection between 
virtue and happiness, vice and misery. We shall assume 
this connection, having proved it in the preceding article, 
entitled the " Philosophy of the American Union ; or, the 
Principles of its Cohesiveness." We proved, also, that the 
Union will be durable, in proportion to the strictness with 
which the existing powers of the Constitution shall be con- 
strued ; hence, should the powers of the General Govern- 
ment be enlarged by duly authorized amendments, the 
enlargement will diminish the cohesive principles of the 
Confederacy. 



74 THE CONSTITUTIONAL POWER OF 

The more our Confederacy increases in number of confeder- 
ates and extent of territory, the greater becomes the necessity 
for restricting its powers. 

Proverbially,* two families cannot live peaceably together 
in the same house, nor can the General and State Govern- 
ments live peaceably together where they possess jurisdic- 
tion over the same matters ; hence the more numerous our 
Confederate States become, the more numerous will become 
the occasions in which the action of the General Govern- 
ment will be liable to conflict with the local interest?, feel- 
ings, or notions of some members of the Confederacy; and 
the more salutary will become the limitation of Federal 
powers. A bankrupt law is constitutional ; but it has 
always created uneasiness, by interfering wdth State laws 
in lelation to debtor and creditor: so the law enacted by 
Congress some few years since, concerning pilotage, was 
constitutional ; but it created dissatisfaction in New- York, 
whose laws it overruled. The law which divided the States 
into sinp^le Congressional districts, was for a period openly 
nullified by at least one State, who continued to elect Con- 
gressmen according to its own enactments. 

The States, in being jealous of their sovereignty, obey an im- 
pulse that is conducive to social progress. 

Personal freedom is about as great in the provinces of 
Canada as in the United States ; but the inhabitants of 
Canada are not accustomed (as we are) to invoke their 
own energies in aid of their social progress. They petition 
the mother country, and listlessly await the result, like a 
farmer, who, after sowing his seed, leaves the issue to Prov- 
idence. The principle which makes the blacksmith's arm 
strong, makes .strong our citizens, and makes the Cana- 
dians weak. When New- York first seriously contemplated 
the connection of Lake Erie with the Hudson River, she 



CONGRESS OVER INTERNAL IMPROVEMENTS. 75 

felt like a child that was beginning to walk alone, and 
deemed the assistance of Congress an indispensable pre- 
liminary. That assistance fortunately failing her, she, first 
timidly, then boldly, called forth her own energies, and 
soon — her strength increasing with her efforts — completed 
the undertaking, and many kindred ones, besides rail-roads, 
and suddenly became the Empire State. And better, her 
example taught other States their latent energies, by which 
instruction our Confederacy is become intersected with 
canals and rail-roads, to an extent that the General Govern- 
ment could not have equalled in centuries, had it possessed 
all requisite constitutional powers.* 

The Constitution must he construed with special reference 
to the limitary clause hy which it was amended. 

The Convention which framed the Constitution intended 
to make a limited government, for they say, in Congress 
shall vest "all legislative powers herein granted ;" thereby 
implying, that the powers of Congress are to be limited by 
the grant. Still, the preamble of the Constitution, and 
Section 8 of Article I., speak of " providing for the general 
welfare," an expression from which some statesmen deduce 
almost unlimited powers in Congress. The States feared 
ibat a latitudinous ambiguity existed in these clauses, and 
hence, on adopting the Constitution, expressed a desire, 
that further declaratory and restrictive clauses should be 
added. The first Congress accordingly proposed, and the 
States subsequently ratified an amendment, that " the pow- 
ers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, 
nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States 
respectively, or to the people." This clinched the granted 
powers, and keeps them unextensible. The amendment, 

* In further elucidation of this principle^ see .post article entitled, " The Advantages 
and Disadvantages of Private Corporations," 



76 THE CONSTITUTIONAL POWER OF 

being subsequent to the Constitution, becomes the master- 
key to all that the Constitution permits ; the pitch-note, 
and all constructions, must harmonize with it, and be con- 
trolled by it ; hence every expression in the Constitution 
which would seem to confer unlimited powers, like " pro- 
viding for the general welfare," becomes unmeaning, except 
as the general welfare can be promoted by the powers that 
are expressly delegated. 

Public improvements can he made hy Congress only as a 
means to execute some granted power. 

We may proceed now without difficulty, in deciding, 
theoretically, the extent to which public improvements can 
be constitutionally prosecuted by Congress. The power is 
nowhere granted expressly ; hence it exists in only the 
power '' to make all laws which shall be necessary and 
proper for carrying into execution all powers vested by the 
Constitution in the Government of the United States, or in 
any department or office thereof." The war power may 
render " necessary and proper," that ships of war which 
are in Lake Erie shall be locked down into Lake Ontario ; 
and any other public improvement or work will be consti- 
tutional, that shall become necessary and proper, to the 
execution of the war power. The power to " provide and 
maintain a navy," *' to collect duties and imposts," &c., 
may render " necessary and proper" the erection of docks 
and light-houses ; the construction of harbors and piers ; 
the improvement of channels and rivers ; and the placing 
of buoys and beacons. The works that may become con- 
stitutional are, therefore, as illimitable and various as the 
means which shall become "necessary and proper" to ex- 
ecute any of the granted powers ; and without reference to 
whether the works are on a lake, inland river, or sea ; ex- 



CONGRESS OVER PUBLIC IMPROVEMENTS. 77 

cept that the location must result from the necessity and 
propriety for which the works are undertaken. 

Public improvements can he made only lulien the granted 
power to luhose execution they are necessary, is sought to be en- 
forced. 

After finding as above, that harbors may be constructed 
and rivers deepened, when the improvements are necessary 
to the collection of duties, the improvements can be au- 
thorized thereby, only when the motive is, in good faith, 
the collection of duties. To make the collection of duties 
a mere pretext for the improvements, would constitute a 
fraud on the Constitution. A United States Bank may be 
necessary and proper " to collect taxes, duties, and im- 
posts ;" but this will not render such a bank constitutional, 
unless Congress establish it for the purpose of such collec- 
tions. The Constitution tolerates the bank as a means, 
and in no other way, just as the law tolerates homicide in 
self-defence; but if, for the purpose of perpetrating a homi- 
cide, we concoct a case of self-defence, we shall no longer 
be within the protection of the laws, but become murderers, 

No discretio7i of Congress^ nor long acquiescence by the 
States and people, nor Judicial decisions, are authoritative 
against the Constitution. 

On Congress devolves the discretion of deciding what 
means are necessary and proper for executing the powers 
granted by the Constitution ; but the discretion, how hon- 
estly soever exercised, will not make a bank constitutional, 
if such an agent is not necessary and proper in the pre- 
mises ; or the limits of the Constitution would exist in con 
gressional discretion. The Supreme Court of the United 
States can always review the discretion, and control it. 
But this is not final ; nor is any continued acquiescence 



78 THE CONSTITUTIONAL POWER OF 

final of the States or people in any given discretion, nor any 
concurrence therein of former Presidents, or other eminent 
statesmen. These may lead a man to believe, that the 
discretion must have been constitutionally exercised, and 
will measurably influence every man ; still, they cannot 
vs^ork an enlargement of the Constitution. Precedents can 
palliate subsequent errors, but not transmute them into 
rights, any more than the continued circulation of a spu- 
rious dollar can transmute it into a genuine dollar. Pre- 
cedents are properly authoritative in courts of law, for they 
prevent a vacillation in judicial decisions, which, if erro- 
neous, can be corrected by new legislation ; but, if our 
National Legislature (Congress and President) shall deem 
itself bound by legislative precedents, no mode exists for 
correcting errors ; " the salt will, indeed, have lost its savor, 
and wherewith shall it be salted ?" and written constitu- 
tions, the American great improvement in government, 
will lose its quality of rendering principles immutable. 

No construction 7nust enlarge a granted povjer, or it will 
'produce a compound enlargement of ike Constitution. 

The power to regulate commerce with foreign nations, 
and among the several States, will not authorize the im- 
provement of rivers, lakes, and inland harbors, unless we 
enlarge the granted power by deeming it synonymous with 
a power to increase, create, and facilitate commerce among 
the several States. This enlarged meaning is accordingl)^ 
given to the power " to regulate commerce among the 
several States," by persons who favor public improvements, 
and who thus bring within the power of Congress many 
river and lake improvements, which otherwise Congress 
would have no pretence for undertaking. We see, there- 
fore, that to enlarge a granted power, effects a direct en- 



CONGRESS OVER PUBLIC IMPROVEMENTS. 79 

largement of the Constitution, and an indirect one, founded 
on the direct. We need not, however, insist that the 
granted power '' to regulate commerce," will never require, 
in its execution, the construction of any public improve- 
ment. It can, like every other granted power, be executed 
by every means that are "necessary and proper;" but we 
insist, that the "power to regulate" must be strictly con- 
strued, so that the public improvements, if any, which 
alone can be founded thereon, must be such as shall be 
necessary to execute the regulations. 

A granted poiuer which possesses a definite meaning^ should 
he construed to mean what is definite, or the Constitution 
becomes indefinitely extensible. 

The power "to regulate commerce among the several 
States," possesses a practical meaning, without resolving the 
word " regulate" into any word of a larger or different import. 
The State of New- York attempted to give Robert Fulton 
and others a monopoly in steam navigation of the Hudson 
Eiver ; but the monopoly was adjudged to be unconstitu- 
tional, to the extent that it excluded steam vessels under a 
coasting license of the General Government. The power 
" to regulate commerce among the several States," found 
here a useful exercise, and we know historically, that the 
power was granted by the Constitution for just such pur- 
poses. Indeed, nothing but this regulating power of Con- 
gress prevents any State from instituting a species of the 
English navigation laws, and thereby to monopolize the 
carrying trade wilhin its State limits, and to prohibit, except 
in its own vessels, the entry into its ports of any produc- 
tions of other States, — ^just as each State restricts to its 
own citizens its State offices, excluding new comers till after 
a residence of some years. Besides, if to regulate is 



80 THE CONSTITUTIONAL POWER OF 

deemed equivalent to create, increase, and facilitate, and 
we apply the construction to the whole constitutional 
clause, namely, " to the commerce with foreign nations, 
and among the several States, and with the Indian tribes," 
Congress will obtain the power, not merely to improve 
inland rivers, and create lake harbors, but the power to 
create roads and canals 'everywhere, and nearly every 
other power. Startled at such a result, some statesmen 
limit the claimed power to rivers and lakes that connect 
two or more States — forgetting that you can scarcely travel 
a highway that will not lead from one State into an adjoin- 
ing one, and over which highway commerce, between the 
two States, is rolling its wagons, and would beneficially 
glide its cars, if a railroad could be substituted by the Gen- 
eral Government in place of the existing earth road. But 
the numerous arbitrary limitations that the advocates of 
such a construction adopt, to render limitable the power 
whifjh they claim, shows that the assumed construction is 
untenable. 

Our Confederacy derives no 'powers from its nationality^ 
not granted specifically to it by the Constitution. 

At the Chicago Harbor and River Convention, in 1847, 
eighteen States were represented. The Committee on Re- 
solutions reported through a statesman* of national re- 
nown, who embodied in his remarks the views of the Com- 
mittee. He said, " A stranger unacquainted with the 
disputes which have arisen, would be surprised at the ex- 
istence of a doubt, whether any human government could 
be so badly constituted, as^ to be incapable of applying the 
means at its disposal, to the protection and maintenance of 
any essential interests of the community, for whose benefit 

* J. C. Calhoun. 



CONGEESS OVER PUBLIC IMPROVEMENTS. 81 

the government was instituted !" President Adams had 
previously used the same argument in his first Message to 
Congress. He said, "No government, in whatever form 
constituted, can accompHsh the lawful ends of its institu- 
tion, but in proportion as it improves the condition of those 
over whom it is established. Roads and canals, by multi- 
plying and facilitating communications and intercourse 
between distant regions and multitudes of men, are among 
the most important means of improvement." 

Arguments like the foregoing are become common, and 
that they are true no man need doubt ; but the govern- 
ments to which they are applicable, are not our limited 
Federal Asfent, but our State Governments, in whom and 
their citizens, rest all the ungranted powers of nationality, 
and who, accordingly, have exercised such powers, by 
constructing railroads, canals, harbors, electric telegraphs, 
steamboat and steamship navigation, &c., to a degree that 
exceeds the coetaneous improvetnents of European govern- 
ments. Indeed, the facts that our States and people possess 
the power to accomplish internal improvements, negatives 
the alleged absurdity of denying that such powers exist in 
the Federal Government, and even proves that the powers 
are not possessed by the Federal Government : otherwise, 
the Federal and State Governments would constitute two 
families occupying the same house, and proverbially no 
house is big enough for such a joint occupancy. The 
Federal Government was not instituted to supersede the 
State Governments, except where the States would con- 
flict injuriously with each other, and in some particulars 
(external defence, &c.,) in which the General Government 
could act for the whole more advantageously than each 
State could act for itself. 

5 



82 THE CONSTITUTIONAL POWER OF 

Congress possesses a latitudinous i^ower over thepuhHc lands ^ 
Nor is the assertion correct, that any of our rivers are 
unimprovable except by the Federal Government. All 
our rivers and lakes are within the limits of some one or 
more of our States ; and where a river or lake traverses 
more than one State, each State knows the part over which 
it possesses jurisdiction ; and to make therein all navigable 
improvements, is among the unquestioned powers of every 
such State. If, however, any river or lake shall be so 
peculiar, that its improvement will constitute a common 
benefit to the United States, the General Government pos- 
sesses in the public lands a constitutional resource adapted 
to the occasion. The resolves of the old Confederative 
Congress, of Oct. 10, 1780, show that the lands were "to 
be disposed of for the common benefit of the United States ;" 
accordingly the existing Constitution gives to Congress 
unlimited power '' to dispose thereof." The power is not 
to sell, but "to dispose of;" and the mode of disposition is 
subject to onl}' the discretion of Congress, as is also the 
purposes of common benefit, for which the disposition shall 
be made. River, lake, or harbor improvements, roads or 
canals, may constitute the greatest common benefit which 
the lands can subserve. To facilitate the settlement and 
cultivation of the lands, may constitute a common benefit 
that would make a donation of lands constitutional and 
desirable. 

The lands also acquired by purchase from France, Spain 
and Mexico, Congress has power "to dispose of,'' and the 
power must, in the absence ofdirections, imply a discretion 
in Congress as to the purposes for which they shall be dis- 
posed of The means that we thus possess for public im- 
provements, are exempt from the excesses which have been 
apprehended from making such improvements by drafts on 



CONGRESS OVER PUBLIC IMPROVEMENTS. 83 

the public treasury ; for the quantity of land is limited that 
can, at any given time, be advantageously available in 
making the improvements ; hence improvements of diifu- 
sive utility will probably be alone undertaken. 

Public improvements can he aided hy a tonnage duty. 

Nor need the public lands be applied as above, except 
as an auxiliary to other constitutional means. The Veto 
Message of President Polk, of March 13, 1848, suggests a 
tonnage duty by the States, (with the assent of Congress, 
conformably to the Constitution,) as a resource by which 
a State may make public improvements within its jurisdic- 
tion. A vessel deriving a benefit from the improvements 
will as cheerfully pay therefor a reasonable tonnage duty, 
as a Philadelphia wagon pays cheerfully a toll in passing 
over a good turnpike road into New- Jersey. The State 
exactions which were objectionable under the old Confede- 
ration, were paid without any equivalent to the payer; 
but the proposed tonnage duty will be graduated by Con- 
gress, and bear only a small proportion to the benefit that 
will result to each vessel in safety, increased draught, and 
facility of progress. A State furnished with such means for 
improving its navigable waters, may grant the tonnage to 
private corporations ; and thus our rivers, lakes and har- 
bors would become improved on the principle of private 
emolument which has covered our country with canals, 
rail-roads, electric telegraphs, dry docks, &c. ; and which 
is connecting the Pacific and Atlantic oceans ; besides fur- 
nishing steam conveyances for mails and passengers over 
all the States, and to foreign nations. If we had perversely 
sought these services at only the hands of the General 
Government, the General Government could not have per- 
formed them to the extent we possess them, even if no 
constitutional impediment had existed. 



84: THE CONSTITUTIONAL POWER OF CONGRESS, &C. 

Finally, when our original thirteen States formed the 
existing Union, Its speedy dissolution was predicted by 
Europeans, for they supposed it was but a repetition of the 
old experiment of consolidating several antagonistic sov- 
ereignties into one. Indeed, so little was the element 
which preserves our Union, (the reserved powers of the 
States,) understood by many who founded the Constitution, 
that a deficiency of consolidation in the General Govern- 
ment was deemed its main defect. To remedy this defect, 
by a latitudinous construction of the Constitution, became 
a cardinal object of one of the great parties (the Federal) 
into which our citizens soon divided ; and it has ever since 
constituted the chief element of our party divisions. Europe, 
however, is beginning to see why the predicted dissolution 
of our Confederacy has not occurred; and Germany and 
Italy are attempting the melioration of their respective 
dominions, not by the absorption, as formerly, of smaller 
neighboring States, but by confederacies after the manner 
somewhat of our Union. Should such confederacies be 
formed, we may well doubt whether the respective confed- 
erates (especially the more powerful ones) will be always 
content with the exercise of only such powers as will 
abridge the sovereignty of each confederate as little as 
shall be indispensable for the good of all. But we, the 
originators of the system, who under it have enjoyed, for 
more than sixty years, unexampled domestic peace and 
prosperity, have learned, we may fondly hope, that all our 
patriotic anticipations for the future are dependent, almost 
wholly, on the strictest practicable construction of our fed- 
eral powers. We will be tender of our confederates even 
within the admitted powers of the Constitution ; and, like 
St. Paul, " if meat make any brother to offend, we will eat 
no flesh while the world stands." 



THE MODE OF .SELECTING A NhW PRESIDENT. 85 



THE MODE or SELECTINa A NEW PKESIDENT.* 
Having been one of your representatives in the late 
Baltimore Convention, you will, I think, pardon me for sub- 
mitting to you the following reflections : — 

Society is every where divided into two classes. The 
greater class constitutes the democracy ; the smaller class 
the aristocracy. In every nation bnt ours, the smaller 
class controls the greater ; hence, in our country the 
smaller class deems the authority of the greater a species 
of political usurpation. Numerical strength, however, 
which in all countries constitutes the only element of natu- 
ral power, constitutes also, with us, the only element of 
legal power ; hence our minority bear the double disadvan- 
tage of contending against both nature and law. 

The weaker party is from necessity usually licentious in 
politics. Unable to defeat any measure, they are reckless 
what they oppose; and, unable to consummate any measure, 
they are reckless what they support. The majority is master 
of its own actions, but. the minority, determined to disagree, 
can move only in opposition ; hence when the majority, obey- 
ing the impulse of duty, points as now, its head North East, 
the minority (like the baser extremity of a weather-cock) 
must point South West. These are the ordinary charac- 
teristics of nearly all political minorities ; but the minority 
with which we contend, from the peculiar difficulties of 
their position, and deeming themselves like deposed mon- 
archs, deprived wrongfully of power, by mere brute force, 
are extraordinarily licentious. They seem to feel the maxim, 
that any warfare is justifiable against rebels ; hence their 
principles, (if principles that maybe called which principle 
has none,) permit them, (since they cannot rule,) to derive 

* Published June 9, 1835. Addressed to the Democratic Electors of the 17th Congres- 
Bional District of New- York. 



86 THE MODE OF SELECTING A NEW PRESIDENT. 

an emasculate gratification in frustrating the majority, and 
for this end to lend themselves to any fraction of any party 
which is treacherous enough to receive such assistance, 
and numerous enough to render the treachery available. 

To counteract an enemy thus inclined, a national con- 
vention is admirably adapted, and in proportion to its 
efficacy are the misrepresentations against it of the min- 
ority ; but their efforts, like the wind which sought to dispos- 
sess a traveller of his cloak, only cause the people to press 
the institution more closely to their hearts. 

In the selection of a chief magistrate, our national com- 
pact coerces the States to regard the preferences of each 
other, — a majority of all being necessary to a choice of 
President even by the House of Representatives. But the 
electoral colleges, also, must regard each other's preferences ; 
for, should each State insist on a candidate of its own, we 
should find as many candidates as States. The three 
largest States would thus engross the Presidency, for they 
would perpetually originate the three highest candidates. 

But though the Constitution insists on concert, it says 
not how concert shall be attained. Equity has supplied the 
deficiency by inducing a concession that the President 
should be selected from alternate sections of the Union, 
and by the preference of the largest mass of the people. 

To ascertain the preference, two modes have been 
adopted:— a nomination by detached masses of citizens, 
and a nomination by a convention from all. The first 
mode exhibits nothing but the preferences of the nominat- 
ing party, but it advances not a step towards concession to 
conflicting preferences. 

A nomination by convention commenced in 1800. The 
convention was held at Philadelphia in May, and was 
composed of the democratic members of Congress. Its 



I 

THE MODE OF SELECTING A NEW PRESIDENT. 87 

first fruits was the election of Thomas Jefferson. Similar 
conventions gave to the nation James Madison and James 
Monroe : and subsequently, by a kindred convention, An- 
drew Jackson. National conventions have therefore origi- 
nated our Presidents for the last thirty-six years, with the 
exception of the first term of General Jackson, when the 
unequivocal voice of the people rendered a convention un- 
necessary, and with the further exception of four years, 
when Mr. Adams administereli the office in opposition to a 
convention. What a lesson we may read in this simple 
recital ! The only President elected in opposition to a con- 
vention — Mr. Adams ! His diplomacy is connected with 
nearly all our treaties, and his life has run parallel with our 
whole history. Possessing, also, p.atriotism ardent and 
acknowledged, a resolution steady, and a comprehension 
extensive, yet he failed utterly in satisfying the country, 
and it lay under his guidance (and without fault of his), 
like Samson shorn. 

Had Providence designed a contrast of men and circum- 
stances to teach us the secret of our strength, the contrast 
could not be more striking than in Mr. Adams and General 
Jackson, and in the events of their administration^. To 
all human views, Mr. Adams in his highly wrought statis- 
tical education possessed every advantage for success ; and 
General Jackson in his simple military occupations, every 
disadvantage. I will not run an ungracious parallel be- 
tween these distinguished individuals, but while every 
heart is glowing with gratulation at the position of our 
country, (with the Bank dead at its feet and France abashed 
at its rebuke,) we may see in the contrast to which 1 have 
alluded, that to be a powerful nation at home or abroad, 
we must possess not merely a competent, but a popular 
President, — and to be popular, he must be the offspring of 



88 THE MODE OF SELECTING A NEW PRESIDENT. 

the democracy, — brought into being at their own time and 
in their own way, and hence feeling a moral obligation to 
conform to their views of government and policy. The 
more decidedly an administration is marked with democra- 
tic characteristics the more popular it will be, and hence 
the more powerful and useful. A coalition administration 
is as ill adapted to our habits, as an amalgamation of reli- 
gions, or a community of property. With all the energy 
of General Jackson, we might have fallen dishonored 
slaves into the arms of the Bank; and self-condemned as 
the natien was by the dodging of the Senate and House of 
Representatives, we might have shrunk out of France, 
spurned from the presence of offended Louis Philip, had 
not, in both cases, the people recognized in Gen. Jackson 
the chosen representative of their own image. 

After 1824, congressional conventions were superseded 
by conventions similar to that of Baltimore. They indi- 
cate opinions with more freshness than congressional con- 
ventions, and in the most fraternal manner, they enable 
every State to protect its local interests with its full consti- 
tutional strength. Of the estimation in which the people 
hold nominating conventions, history furnishes a few in- 
structive examples : — 

On the resignation of President Jefferson, two candi- 
dates divided the preferences of the democratic party, and, 
for a period endangered its supremacy. In this dilemma, 
a convention on the l9th of January, 1808, was held at 
Washino-ton (^f all the democratic members of Congress, 
with the exception of 35. Ninety-four assembled, and they 
nominated Mr. Madison for the succession. Mr. Monroe 
not only acquiesced in this expressed will of the majority, 
but he subsequently strengthened the government of his 
competitor by conducting the Department of State. 



THE MODE OF SELECTING A NEW PRESIDENT. 89 

The democracy of both candidates was unquestioned, 
and had Mr. Monroe resisted the regular nomination and 
become an opposition candidate, he might have soothed his 
conscience by supposing that his election involved no 
change of national policy. Mr, Monroe reasoned more 
wisely. A woman who submits to be maintained by a 
libertine, and expects to preserve her purity, is not more 
ignorant of human nature, than a politician who submits 
to be elevated by his political enemies, and expects to 
retain his party principles. 

A't the termination of Mr. Madison's second term, two 
candidates again divided the preferences of the party. A 
convention was held at Washington, March 16, 1816, of 
' 19 members of Congress, being all the democratic mem- 
bers except 19. A strong disposition existed towards Mr. 
Crawford, but Mr. Monroe received the nomination by a 
majority of 11 votes. The eventual elevation of Mr. 
Munroe well illustrates the Roman political axiom, " make 
haste slowly," for no man believes that Mr. Munroe would 
have been President in 1816, had he been a factious candi- 
date in 1808. 

Again the unsuccessful candidate acquiesced, and ac- 
cepted office under his competitor. That Mr. Crawford 
gathered not the full fruits of his integrity, arose solely from 
a providential infliction which many persons deemed over- 
whelming. The estimation, however, in which the public 
held his former acquiescence, may be read in the address 
to the people, of the Nominating Convention of 1821. It 
says : " We must remind you, that the candidate whom we 
recommend, has established a peculiar claim to the esteem 
of the democratic party, by his manly and disinterested con- 
duct upon a former occasion, under the strongest temptation 
to become the instrument of compromising its integrit3^" 

5* 



90 THE MODE OF SELECTING A NEW PRESIDENT. 

We will now turn to those who have refused to acquiesce 
in the will of the majority: — In the Convention of 1800 
which nominated Thomas Jefferson for the Presidency, 
and Aaron Burr for Yice-President, no 'diversity of opinion 
existed, as to the respective stations which these citizens 
were to occupy. When, however, by a defect in the Con- 
stitution, the House of Representatives were to elect be- 
tween Jefferson and Burr, a temptation was presented to 
Col. Burr, of becoming instrumental " in compromising the 
integrity of his party." Col. Burr's own views of -what 
was due to the w^ill of a majority, is found in his letter of 
Dec. 16, 1801, to a gentleman then and now living in Bal- 
timore, and which was published at the time. It says, 
"every man who knows me, ought to know that I would 
utterly disclaim all competition with Mr. Jefferson. My 
friends would dishonor my views, and insult my feelings, 
by a suspicion that I would submit to be instrumental in 
counteracting the wishes and expectations of the United 
States." 

These declarations seemed explicit, but the presidential 
contest which ensued in the House of Representatives, laid 
a heavy hand on the political character of Col. Burr. If 
he really intended no competition wdth Mr. Jefferson, if a 
mere suspicion of such an intention has been sufficient to 
produce the events which compose the subsequent political 
history of Col. Burr, we may learn even more strongly than 
though he were guilty, the estimation in which the people 
hold an attempt to rush uncalled into their high places. 
Even New- York, from whose affection Col. Burr had de- 
rived his potency, forgot that she was a mother, when she 
thought he had forgotten to be a worthy son ; and in 18U4, 
when he was a candidate for her chief magistracy, he 
scarcely received a vote of all that had constituted his former 



THE MODE OF SELECTING A NEW PRESIDENT. 91 

supporters. His votes were of those who, in the language 
of their party, of two evils choose the least ; meaning 
thereby, the candidate most repugnant to democrats. 

In 1812, another instance occurred of dissent from the 
decision of a presidential convention The preferences of 
the democracy were divided between Mr. Madison, who 
was a candidate for re-election and Mr. Clinton. A nomi- 
nating convention met at Washington, May 17, 1812. Out 
of 133 democratic members of Congress, only 82 would 
attend, and they voted unanimously for Mr Madison. The 
frietids of Mr. Clinton stigmatized this meeting as a conven- 
tion of only Mr. Madison's supporters, and hence deemed 
Mr. Clinton not implicated by its decision. The people 
thought differently. To fly a court, will not, in such a case 
invalidate a verdict. 

The Legislature of New- York contained 91 democratic 
members, of whom the whole (excepting 4) nominated, 
unanimously, Mr. Clinton for the Presidency, eleven days 
after the congressional nomination of Mr. Madison. In an 
address to the people of the United States, they say : " We 
ofTer you a chief magistrate, whose principles you cannot 
doubt, and of whose competency and talents you are well 
convinced. Gratify us by his election. He enjoys our ut- 
most confidence. He inherits the blood, the principles, 
the firmness of that hero, whom we and our fathers long 
delighted to honor, — who was the guardian of our State 
when the enemy desolated our lands, and burned our 
towns ; and whose valor and wisdom contributed emi- 
nently to the triumph of America. We urge these facts as 
a claim ; but if we urged them even as a persuasive, what 
American heart susceptible of feeling or gratitude, w^ould 
repel our claim ?" 

The American people did repel the claim, indignantly 



92 THE MODE OF SELECTING A NEW PRESIDENT.^ 

and triumphantly. The American heart is tender in a 
good cause, but it is also adamantine, when its rights are 
usurped. Whether Mr. Clinton or Mr Madison should be 
the President had become merged in the greater ques- 
tion of — whether, like the ancient English, we should 
enlist under the personal banners of a white rose and a 
red, or contend as heretofore under the stars of the Union. 

The address in favor of Mr. Clinton said much, but it 
was cold in comparison with the fervor with which that 
extraordinary man was cherished by the State. I have 
seen him in our State Senate when the slightest intimation 
of his judgment commanded the deference of the most 
sagacious of its members. He was young in comparison 
with many of his colleagues, but the most aged yielded 
him reverence. Nature had formed him beautiful, and the 
constant indication of his superiority had given him the port 
of authority. His elevation was fearfully high, and, in an 
instant, he fell. A change so complete in the fortunes of 
an individual, a reversal so sudden, men seldom witness. 

History records of the first Brutus, that having as judge 
condemned to death his two sons for conspiring to place 
executive power where the Romans had not willed it ; and 
having waited to see the young men stripped, beaten with 
rods, and beheaded, he retired from the tribunal to indulge 
in secret his parental feelings. So New-York still loved 
Clinton amid her sternest inflictions. Yet not till years of 
penance, and the most signal benefactions, could he regain 
power. Even then, while the splendor of his achievements 
rolled forward his triumphal car, it was cheered most by 
those whom in better days he had resisted ; and amid their 
loudest plaudits, he must occasionally, like Napoleon, have 
mourned the absence of the more inspiring eaily cry, " Live 
the Democracv !" 



THE MODE OF SELECTIN"G A NEW PRESIDENT. 93 

Ostensibly, Mr. Clinton had but acquiesced in the wishes 
of the State, yet so accustomed were the people to sympa- 
thize with his desires, that with more justice than is at first 
apparent, they held him accountable for their own aberra- 
tions. The legislative members who nominated him were 
never blamed, for they but obeyed the wishes of their con- 
stituents. In accepting the nomination, the same palliation 
was not permitted to Mr. Clinton. The whole Union are 
the constituency of a President, and the commands of the 
Union can alone legitimate an aspiration to the office. 

We thus discover that the two instances which have 
occurred, of opposition to the genera! will, have proceeded 
froan New-York. In both instances New- York has also 
punished the defection, till the sternest justice became 
satisfied ; and now, by one of those retributions with which 
Providence delights occasionally to visits States as well as 
individuals, the principles which her severities upheld are 
to be exercised for her benefit, ihus proving that honesty 
is as good policy for nations as for men. 

Still, though New- York honors the individual* who is 
nominated for the Presidency ; though he is emphatically 
her favorite son, (self-nurtured in her woodlands wild,) and 
one from whose services to the Union she expects honor, 
she sent to the Convention w^ith no instructions but to 
ascertain on whom the preferences of the nation rested, 
and him having ascertained she would support. And I err 
greatly if the individual who was nominated, would not 
have urged the Convention to disregard him, if another 
person united the preferences of a larger portion than he, 
of the democratic party. Nay, he would not in such a case 
have accepted the nomination. He would join no proceed- 
ings whose object was the frustration of the general will. 

* Martin Van Buren. 



94 THE MODE OF SELECTING A NEW PRESIDENT. 

So conscious of this, are his political enemies, that he has 
never been sullied by their support. Like the honest mag- 
net, he repels as unequivocally as he attracts. 

The North will never possess a candidate more entitled 
to the confidence of the South. But he needs no delineation, 
nor is his capacity the question before the nation ; ' but 
rather whether democratic councils shall continue to pre- 
vail or party become a chaos. Should this occur, I fondly 
believe in the energies of the people to recover a healthful 
existence. Yet party confidence will have received an 
ungracious stab. Party confidence is the strongest bond 
of the Union. Like the relation of husband and wife, it 
destroys individualities. Listead of a Southern interest, a 
Western, and an Eastern interest, it provides a general 
interest ; and makes the election of every President, a 
triumph not of a section, but of the whole. 

I have supposed that the antipathy which the people 
entertain for federalism, — the ins inct by which they dis- 
cover it, under whatever name it seeks concealment, — and 
the delusion which induces our opponents to persevere, and 
causes them (flattered by the smallest victories) to hope 
that they shall eventually subdue the majority, are all bene- 
volent dispensations of Providence, to divert us from the 
fatal divisions to which we are exposed by local prejudices. 

Finally, I will not speculate on improbable evils. The 
nomination of the Convention will be sustained, and with 
too feeble a resistance to yield to patriotism the excite- 
ment of a contested triumph. The late elections in Virginia 
are an evidence of the haste with which the South will 
rush to the rescue of their character from the imputation, 
that conventions are obligatory only when Southern men 
are to be nominated. The South will perform its duty, and 
the West; and this first serious attempt to show practically 



THE MODE OF SELECTING A NEW PRESIDENT. 95 

an unconquerable distrust and irreconcilableness between 
the great sections of the nation, will yield only another 
and a strong evidence, that our Union is too dear to the 
people, to be in danger from the ambition of individuals. 



CHAPTER III. 

OF THE ACaUISITlON OF NEW TERRITORY. 



THE ANNEXATION OF TEXAS.* 

Annexation has been urged as a measure necessary to 
the perpetuation of Slavery, and this argument has been 
addressed not merely to both Houses of Congress, but 
obtruded upon foreign nations ; and latterly, to create a 
common interest in such nations| in favor of slavery, the 
institution has been lauded as a povverful instrument of 
commercial superiority over Great Britain. Our states- 
man seems not to have suspected that his proposed slavery 
means of commercial advantages over Great Britain was 
obnoxious to a large portion of mankind. We at the 
North are of that portion, and nothing has so much preju- 
diced among us, the whole subject of Texas annexation, as 
its supposed connection with slavery. This has induced 
me to examine whether a true issue has been made up in 
reference to the contemplated annexation, or whether 
a casual incident thereof, favorable to only one inter- 
est, has, not unskillfully, been made to assume an undue 
prominence, and even to usurp the place of better, more 
direct, less contingent, and more general interests ; and 
especially whether the claim of exclusive benefits from 
the measure to the South, has not reacted by artificially 
investing it with an exaggerated potency for. evil to the 
North. 

* Published in 1844. t Correspondence of J. C. Calhoun, Secretary of War. 



THE ANNEXATION OF TEXAS. 97 

^ By the Constitution, no agency that touches slavery, is 
delegated to the General Government, except the power of 
prohibiting the importation of slaves into the United States 
— a power which has been exercised so rigidly, that for an 
American vessel and crew to engage in the slave trade con- 
stitutes piracy, and is punished with death. The annexa- 
tion of Texas would bring that country within the above 
provision, and to that extent is limitary of slavery ; for she 
can now employ her whole marine openly, in importing 
slaves from Africa and elsewhere, and with no power in 
other nations to gainsay the traffic, unless she has for the 
time being surrendered the power by treaty, and of which 
I am not informed. 

Only one other provision of the Constitution relates to 
slavery. In the apportionment of representation among 
the several States, every five slaves are enumerated as three 
persons. This provision is relied on more than any other, 
as a self-evident advantage by the South over the North ; 
indeed a petition has just been presented (no doubt in bitter 
irony) to the House of Representatives, demanding that 
the cattle of the free States shall be represented, as an 
equivalent for the representation allowed to Southern slaves. 
I cite this to prove that a portion of our citizens believe 
that the representation allowed to the slave States is aggres 
sive to the others. Suppose, however, the slaves of South 
Carolina were to escape in mass to our State, and elude 
reclamation, every five of them would count five ; and our 
ratio of representation w^ould be increased accordingly; 
though they would be as incapable of voting at our polls 
as they are at the'polls of South Carolina, for not one of 
them would possess an unencumbered freehold of the value 
of two hundred and fifty dollars. 

Many persons canvass this subject without discrimi- 



yo THE ANNEXATION OF TEXAS. 

nating between the right to vote and the right to be repre- 
sented. The General Government leaves to every State 
the power of deciding who shall be voters. The slave 
States can give the elective franchise to their slaves, and 
still every five of them would count as only three, in 
adjusting the number of Congressional representatives to 
which the State is entitled, while we may withhold the right 
of franchise from any classes of people, and still every five of 
them count five, in adjusting the number of our represen- 
tation. Is this an enviable difference in favor of the South, 
and calculated to add unduly to their power over the free 
States ? The natural power of different Commonwealths is 
proportioned to the relative number of their inhabitants, 
irrespective of the color of their skins. This scale of power 
is ordained by God, in the muscles and sinews which are 
given nearly alike in strength to every individual ; and 
this test would have decided the relative power of our dif_ 
ferent States, had not another been adopted by the Consti- 
tution ; and which by counting every five slaves as only 
three persons, clearly takes from the slave States a natural 
power of greater force than the conventional power it con- 
fers. The framers of the Constitution seem to have 
assumed that the Federal power accorded to the slave States 
was a sacrifice of natural power, for they compensated it 
by a corresponding diminution of the burden of Federal 
taxation. This compensation has failed by a change in 
the practice of the Government. The South might there- 
fore well contend that the consideration having failed, their 
sacrifice of natural power should fali with it. Nor can I 
see the propriety with which we object to slave represen- 
tation, — we at the North " who hold the truth to be self- 
ident that all men are created equal." The Constitution 
elevates a slave to three fifths of the constituent immuni- 



I 



THE ANNEXATION OF TEXAS. 99 

ties of a free man ; would we quite level him with brute 
beasts, by casting him entirely out of the constituency of 
his State ? That his State deprives him of liberty is no rea- 
son for us to superadd thereto, an exclusion also from being 
represented in Congress ? 

The Constitution contains on the subject of slavery, only 
what I have enumerated ; hence whether Texas will or not 
increase the number of our slave States, the North cannot 
be thereby injuriously affected through any agency of the 
General Government. Thus was the subject viewed by the 
founders of the Constitution, or they would not have left 
slavery dependent on the volition of each State. Thus, also, 
was the subject deemed by the States themselves during a 
long course of years, or their number could not have 
increased from thirteen to twenty-six ; for as the admission 
of new free States must be as aggressive to the South as 
the admission of slave States is to the North, every new 
State that sought admission, would have been shipwrecked 
between the Sylla of slavery, or the Charybdis of no 
slavery. 

But abandoning hypotheses, I would invite such of our 
citizens as are disposed to balance the good and evil of 
any measure, and to be governed in their preferences by 
the preponderance of the good, to look at the certain bene- 
fits that must result from the acquisition of Texas. It is in 
size about equal to six times the dimensions of our Empire 
State, with a climate said to be salubrious, and giving us a 
monopoly of the finest cotton land, and of the finest cotton that 
the world produces — an article which is yet in a giant infan- 
cy, as relates to its commercial importance to our country 
and the world, and its many ministrations to the comforts of 
the poor, and the gratification of all classes. Under the aus- 
pices of our Union, this immense country wdl become the 

LOFC 



100 THE ANNEXATION OF TEXAS. 

home of millions of human beings ; not drawn from other 
regions to depopulate them, but a new growth of immortal 
and intelhgent beings. In the birth of such an empire, 
with its ramified consequences to the end of time, can we 
see nothing but the question of slavery ? Is the introduc- 
tion nothing into such a region of our language, with its 
literature; and our laws, customs, manners, arts, religion 
and privileges ? Is the addition nothing, of such a territory 
to our home, such a multitude to our family circle, with 
whom we may interchange location without adopting a 
new allegiance ; and interchange productions without the 
obstructions of conflicting nationality ? The acquisition 
of these benefits seems to expand each man of us into 
something more than our present stature ; and to give to 
every mechanic, manufacturer, merchant, and cultiva- 
tor of the soil, some source of additional activity and 
prosperity. 

I know, however, that many persons believe our Union 
is already sufficiently large for strength ; and that addi- 
tional extent will only encumber us. If we examine this 
notion, we shall find it is founded on analogies that are not 
applicable to our condition. When an empire is composed 
of conquered nations, that are continually struggling to 
regain their lost independence, every new acquisition di- 
vides the strength of the conqueror, and he becomes ex- 
hausted by the division. But our Union is voluntary, and, 
like an arch, constitutes a reciprocation of strength which 
all the members yield to each, and each yields to all. Such 
is the result of our system thus far ; and the experience of 
half a century of peace and war, is a safer indication of its 
nature than the conjectures of any theory. 

But are we willing that annexation shall be obtained at 
the expense of a war with Mexico, and perhaps with Eng- 



1 



THE ANNEXATION OF TEXAS. 101 

land ? This question is best answered by ascertaining 
whether annexation is compatible with our duty as a moral 
and Christian peop'e ; for no nation is required to avert 
war, by any other means than to act justly. Next April, 
nine years will have elapsed since the capture of Santa 
Anna and his army, by the Texians, at the battle of San 
Jacinto. Mexico has ever since refrained from the subju- 
gation of Texas, from a want of power, or an abandon- 
ment of its exercise. In the War of our Revolution, the 
capture of Burgoyne by our troops was alone deemed so 
virtual a seal of Independence, that France forthwith 
treated with us as an independent nation ; though her obli- 
gations towards Great Britain with reference to us were 
as great as our obligations to Mexico, with reference to 
Texas. In the recent struggle between the provinces of 
Greece and the Empire of Turkey, nothing occurred that 
will compare in decisiveness with the battle of San Jacinto, 
or the acquiescence of Mexico ; still England and the other 
principal governments of Europe decided that Greece had 
virtually freed itself from the authority of Turkey, and 
they assisted in consolidatinii; her provinces into a separate 
kingdom. The same sovereigns, at the subsequent revolt 
of Belgium from the authority of Holland, allowed the King 
of Holland a brief period to reduce to obedience his rebel- 
lious province, but prohibited him from continuing, in ven- 
geance, efforts that were seen to be ineffectual for the pur- 
poses of subjugation ; and Belgium also was organized into 
an independent kingdom. These results differ from the 
incidents of remote history, but the difference is claimed 
by the governments of Europe, as a triumph of justice over 
physical power, whose reign terminated, they say, with the 
overthrow of Napoleon. England, therefore, is morally 
estopped, by her own practices, from any exceptions 



102 THE ANNEXATION OF TEXAS. 

against the independent volitions of Texas, and in the 
judgment of all Europe, as evinced by the foregoing cases, 
Mexico has no just cause of offence against us, by our dis- 
regard of her latent sovereignty. We are apt to estimate 
the right of Mexico to Texas, as identical with a man's 
ownership of a chattel. But I deny that the rules of 
owmership which apply to chattels, should apply to the 
sovereignty of one nation over another. In the spirit of 
our Declaration of Independence, and nearly in its lan- 
guage, all governments are instituted for the happiness of 
the governed ; hence the right of Mexico over Texas is in- 
stituted for the benefit of Texas ; while the ownership of 
Mexico in a mere chattel, is for the benefit not of the chat- 
tel, but of Mexico. We have the authority of the Word 
of God for a still more restricted estimate of the proprie- 
tarv right of nations. The division of the earth into dis- 
tinct sovereign ownerships is a contrivance of man, insti- 
tuted for his social benefits ; but revelation declares, that 
the earth is the Lord's, and the use thereof is for man in 
common. In this enlarged sense, Texas, so far from being 
the property of Mexico, is not exclusively the property of 
the Texians, except as their use of it quadrates with its use- 
fulness to all men in common. On this Christian principle, 
and on this alone, was justified the recent successful attem^pt 
by Great Britain, to constrain the people of China to relin- 
quish the exclusive monopoly which they have usurped 
for ages over the regions which they inhabit. On this 
principle alone we can justify our forcible obtrusion on the 
aborigines of America ; and our compelling them to aban- 
don to us such lands as they could not use themselves 
beneficially to the common rights of all — in thus acting, 
instead ol' being wrong-doers, we are but fuliilling the 
command of Providence, to multiply and replenish the 
earth, and subdue it. 



TEXAS ANNEXED. 103 



TEXAS AI^I^EXED.* 

The Bible declares that in a multitude of counsellors is 
wisdom. The truth of this proverb constitutes the safety of 
our country, for what nation but ours possesses 20 millions 
of counsellors ; and it constitutes the glory of our institu- 
tions, for what government but ours exalts every man into 
a counsellor of state. And nothing verifies more clearly 
the scripture above quoted, than the Annexation of Texas, 
which is strictly a product of our 20 millions of counsellors, 
against Presidents and aspirants to the Presidency, with a 
United States Senate superadded ; and against the com- 
bined spectres of sectional, partisan, and Abolition ravings. 
The evidence thus furnished to ourselves, of the intelli- 
gence of the most unschooled part of our constituency, 
(for these rather than the better conditioned advocated the 
measure,) is worth morally more than Texas, how much 
soever any of us may prize her. It proves distinctly that 
the people are not merely sovereign by law, but that they 
are intellectually capable of sovereignty, and morally de- 
serving thereof; while every true-minded man who appre- 
ciates such a combination of intelligence, must ejaculate 
in his heart. Bless the people ! May their reign be perpetual. 
And what an evidence is thus furnished to the world, that 
wisdom is subserved by giving to the people the powers 
which our institutions accord to them, despite the preju- 
dices of Europe, that the. art of government is suited to 
the capacity of only a favored few ; for who sees not now, 
that annexation is better for humanity, than that Texas 
should have been cast back into the slaughter-house of 
xvlexico, where anarchy, civil war, and a consequent mas- 

* Published in 1845. 



104: TEXAS ANNEXED. 

sacre between contending factions, are orainarj occur- 
rences ; where travellers must hire an armed escort, or fall 
a prey to banditti, which the Government is too feeble to 
suppress ; and where consequently civilization is retrograde 
and population stagnant ? Who sees not now, a political 
benefit, in the addition to our country of a multitude of 
patriotic citizens of the temper of the Texians. A noble 
people, who, unterrified by threats of war, unseduced by the 
vanity of nationality, and the promises of commercial and 
pecuniary favors, declared for annexation — not one dissent- 
ing voice in the congressional representation of the whole 
nation ; and dragging with them a chief magistrate, vainly 
struggling against the popular will. And who sees not 
now, a benefit in the acquisition of a fruitful territory ? If 
a man happens to be a producer of nothing but children, 
(a branch of industry in which the poor seem more expert 
than the rich,) a new deuiand is created for them in the 
beautiful cotton lands and sugar plantations of Texas. 

But connected with annexation are considerations which 
yet demand the counsel of our 20 millions. Never before 
have arms and bribery been invoked, and three nations con- 
federated together, to prevent an independent sovereignty 
from voluntarily relinquishing its nationality, and merging 
itself into another Government, — this too when the prof- 
fered terms of admission by the receiving nation, are 
something less than liberal ; a sort of initiatory fee being 
demanded of the incommg member. We have required 
the Texians to surrender to us their forts, arsenals, navy- 
yards, and ships of war, while the debts, by which these 
forts, arsenals, and ships were constructed, are still to be 
paid by the constructors. Even the import duties, by 
which alone public debts can well be paid, we require 
the Texians to surrender also. What a contrast is here 



TEXAS ANNEXED. 105 

exhibited by Texas, to the agony of Poland, at a con 
nection with Russia ; or to the agitation of Ireland, to be 
released from her union with England ! Should not 
justice in these exactions be accorded to Texas, by our 
coming Congress ? Her debt is the price which she paid 
for her sovereignty, to say nothing of her blood, above all 
price ; and when we accept from her a surrender of this 
sovereignty, can we wish to leave her burdened with its 
cost, and thus take advantage to her injury, of her patriotic 
yearnings to re-unite her citizens with their pristine family ? 
and when we take possession of her ships and fortresses, 
with what heart can we turn out their brave defenders, 
and replace them with men who never bore the heat or 
burden of achieving Texian independence ? 

And in the annexation of Texas, lies something further, 
that our millions may well contemplate, as indicative of 
their future destiny. Till lately, Texas was an unexplored 
waste, where, perchance, a wanderer had painfully forced 
his way, and given to some few streams a name significant 
of barbarous or foreign associations ; now it is fast being 
dotteii over with habitations, whose inmates possess our 
language, laws, and institutions. Already some of our 
citizens may be preparing to reach this but recently foreign 
land, and to checker it with electric telegraphs, and bring 
it within the compass of our rail-road and steam-boat ex- 
cuisions. Above it, and around, are regions still more 
remote, not as heretofore, blank spaces on the world's map, 
but as bountiful fields, towards which our civilization is 
fast pouring with an impulse that must sweep away the 
metaphysical obstructions, that would fasten these fine 
regions, like a widowed Gentoo, to the dead body of a 
nominal lord. The earth^s occupancy is the right of man ; 
and when men occupy, theirs is the right to pursue their 

6 



106 TEXAS ANNEXED. 

own happiness under such a form of government as they 
shall deem most conducive to that end ; and in connection 
with any other government they shall wish, or in an inde- 
pendence of all connection. Such are the dictates of 
nature ; such the teachings of revelation ; and if in 
practising on these tenets, our nation shall come in conflict 
with powers that would selfishly abridge the rights of man, 
we must, as heretofore, look to our duties, rather than to 
the hazards of performing them. 



CHAPTER IV. 



THE RELATIVE MERITS OF EXISTING PARTIES. 



THE ANATOMY OF POLITICS.* 

We may as well believe that the seasons succeed each 
other by chance, as that chance has caused the fifty years' 
ascendency in our country of the Democratic party. 
Our two main political sects obey opposite impulses, as 
naturally as the North and South points of a magnetized 
needle. The Whigs, who recently opposed the annexation 
of Texas, and now deprecate acquisitions from Mexico, 
are the same party that two generations ago opposed the 
annexation of Louisiana, and who recently generated a 
faction to exclude adopted citizens from official stations, 
" that the children's bread should not be cast unto dogs," 
and that fifty years ago quaiantined immigrants fourteen 
years before they could vote. So, while Democrats have 
constantly struggled to accord political equality to all citi- 
zens, the Whigs have constantly exhibited a desire for pro- 
perty qualifications in voters and rulers. Indeed, the pre- 
dilections are so marked of the two parties, that when 
posterity shall read that, in 1844, the people of Rhode 
Island rebelled, as the only attainable relief from a Consti- 
tution which enabled a few property-holders to control the 
State, every Reader will know instinctively, that the Whigs 
withheld the melioration. 

* Published March 21, 1848. 



108 THE ANATOMY OF POLITICS. 

These opposite practices proceed from opposite feelings. 
By the Democrats our bouuclaries are never large enough 
for the benevolence that would provide a happy home for 
all men, while the Whigs deem our boundaries too large 
already for the selfishness that looks to only exemption 
from danger. By Democrats poverty and ignorance are 
benevolently deemed curable by the enticements of political 
privileges, while the Whigs deem poverty and ignorance 
manageable by only political restraints. Excessive rever- 
ence for the rich, wise, and powerful, characterizes the 
Whigs, who delight in designating some men as "god- 
like," and others as " dear leader ;" while Democrats sym- , 
pathize with the humble in preference to further elevating 
the exalted, and making the strong stronger and the rich 
richer. The same excessive reverence for power inclines 
the Whigs to a latitudinous National Government, and to 
a disfavor of State rights ; while the dread of pov^er in- 
clines Democrats to a strict construction of the Constitu- 
tion, and a respect for State sovereignties. 

The continued ascendency of the Democratic party 
proves that a majority of our people are Democrats ; hence 
the Whigs can never obtain political power, except by some 
artifice, which enables their proper smaller portion of the 
people to outnumber at the polls the larger portion. To 
effect this unnatural conversion, they select for Governors 
and President, candidates as little tainted with Whig pecu- 
liarities, as is compatible with the partisan services ex- 
pected of the candidate — candidates who possess some odor 
of democracy. Mr. Clay derives all his Whig availability 
from this odor, acquired in opposing the Whigs in his bet- 
ter days. Indeed, a man's availability as a ,Whig candi- 
date must be in an inverse ratio to his Whig orthodoxy ; 
hence Daniel Webster, who was always Whig, possesses 



THE ANATOMY OF POLITICS. 109 

no availability. Gov. Young's recent patriotic opposition 
to Mexico has greatly impaired his Whig standing; but it 
has, in an equal degree, enhanced his availability as a 
Whig candidate at any future election; while Mr. Clay's 
recent Lexington speech in favor of Mexico,^ has enhanced 
his Whig standing to almost idolatry, but it has destroyed 
his availability. His admirers are again essaying to roll 
him up the steeps of power, but he can never attain the 
summit ; and he will probably be cast aside like Webster, 
as too good a Whig to be nominated. 

The same reasons prevent the Whigs from enacting their 
most cherished measures, when they happen to possess a 
majority in Congress, or in a State Legislature. Nothing, 
for instance, is more abhorrent to the Whigs than the ex- 
istin<T restraint on our State Leo-islature agjainst borrowing ; 
but they forbear instituting enactments for its repeal, 
deeming such a consummation too Whig to be successful. 
So in Congress, while they constantly declare the Mexican 
war unconstitutional, unnecessary, and a wicked slaughter 
of women and children, they have not dared to negative 
votes of thanks to the generals and soldiers who perpe- 
trated these Whig-denounced acts. 

The Det locratic party, on the contrary, constituting 
naturally a majority of our electors, know that Democratic 
nominations will be likely to succeed, in proportion to the 
Democratic orthodoxy of the nominees ; hence, in 1844, 
the Baltimore Convention rejected several prominent Pre- 
sidential candidates, and nominated Mr. Polk, his feelings 
towards Texas and Ore2;on beinsj more Democratic than 
the feelings of his rivals. This selection of a comparatively 
humble individual, with nothing to recommend him but his 
Democratic orthodoxy, was so variant from the practice of 

* We were at war with Mexico. 



110 THE ANATOMY OF POLITICS. 

the Whigs, that tliey asked exultingly, who is James K. 
Polk? — implying thereby, that his deficiency of personal 
importance would ensure his defeat. But what can be 
wiser than thus to present to our electors principles to be 
voted for in the person of some candidate, rather than to 
present some cmdidate to be voted for as a wonderfully 
wise bel-wether, whom the people are to admiringly follow. 
Providence has not been so partial in the organization of 
individuals as to make one man superior to the united wis- 
dom of a majority of his fellow-citizens ; hence the people 
collectively must ever be wiser than their rulers, and hence 
rulers exhibit m.ore wisdom in subordinating their individual 
notions to the will of the people, than in persisting, as some 
have to their cost, in thwarting the popular will, and de- 
manding a " sober second thought." 

When we thus see the organic difference of our two 
main political parties, who can avoid hoping that Demo- 
cracy may continue to prevail? Wiio can see the patriot- 
ism, for instance, with which in times of danger the poor 
rush to recruit our armies, and not desire them to partici- 
pate fully in civil honors ? Tf Democracy, in its good will 
to all mankind, is pursuing on unattainable end, let us find 
the error experimentally, and mourn over the frustration of 
bright hopes ; but let us not assume the failure by a con- 
demnatory creed, like that of the Whigs. 

But in the approaching Presidential election, the Whigs 
are answerable for more than the possession of a repulsive 
creed. Forewarned by the historic odium of their opposition 
to the war with England of 1 812, they determined to avoid all 
factious opposition to the Mexican war; but, alas! "man 
proposes but God disposes." The ball that is placed on an 
inclined plane will roll onwards and downwards, despite the 
intention of the man who placed it there. So the Whigs, who 



THE ANATOMY OF POLITICS. Ill 

at the commencement of the present war meant to be only 
a little politic, by claiming the merit of voting against their 
conscience rather than withhold aid to Gen. Taylor, be- 
came soon, by their minority opposition, sufficiently fac- 
tious to procrastinate subsequent supplies of troops, till the 
sickly season destroyed more of our new recruits than the 
arms of Mexico. Opposition extended thus far in the first 
year of the war. A second year found the procrastination 
of supplies converted into an almost certainty of their 
being withheld, conjoined with incipient threats of im- 
peaching the President, and of coercing a relinquishment 
of all our Mexican conquests ; with aid and comfort to the 
public enemy in every way, compatible with exemption 
from the laws of treason. The actors in this sad spectacle 
must, in prospect of the present peace, feel like the Com- 
mittee of the Hartford Convention, who, when they arrived 
at Washington to compel the Government to surrender to 
Great Britain, found peace had left them nothing for their 
errand but ceaseless shame. Peace left, however, some- 
thing to be performed by the people — the condemnation of 
those who had arrayed themselves against their country in 
its hour of need. A similar duty will devolve upon the 
people now, and before another year history will again re- 
cord, for the benefit of the country in all future times, that 
the wages of political sins is political death — and all who 
love their country more than their party will say, Amen. 



112 THE VICES OF POLITICAL MINOKITIES. 



THE YICES OF POLITICAL MINOEITIES.* 

Self-preservation characterizes all the regular forma- 
tions of nature. Caterpillars have ever cankered trees, but 
the injury is only individual, while trees, as a class of ex- 
istences, continue unabated. Wolves and owls have ever 
preyed on flocks and birds, but the species preyed on con- 
tinue as numerous as ever. Domestic malcontents have 
ever struggled against social order, but civil societies pre- 
serve their organization — nature being more conservative 
than destroyers are destructive. And in addition to this 
general preservative energy which pervades nature. Prov- 
idence fortifies the principle in men, by everywhere and 
at all times connecting our personal interests with the 
interests of the society of which we are members. What 
God has thus joined together, men sometimes try to sepa- 
rate. History records occasionally an Arnold, who attempts 
to benefit himself by the sacrifice of the interests of his 
nation, but so conscious are men of the impracticability of 
such attempts, that even the attempts are only sufficiently 
numerous to exemphfy their hopelessness. 

Rulers, Legislative and Executive, being thus almost 
constrained by Providence to govern wisely and justly, 
they present to opposing partisans no means of opposition, 
but to condemn measures that are not wrong, and to advo- 
cate alternatives that are not right ; every political minor- 
ity occupies thus a false position, like a lawyer in a cause 
where law and equity are a^fainst him. The indiscrimin- 
ate advocacy of right and wrong by lawyers, is supposed 
to impair their ability to discern right from wrong ; and the 
like self-abuse of the intellect that is practiced by minority 



Published in 1848. 



THE VICES OP POLITICAL MINORITIES. 113 

politicians, is still more pernicious, because it is more unre- 
mitting. With no fixed principle but opposition, they are 
like children who play the game of contrary, never letting 
go but when they are told to hold fast, and never holding 
fast but when they are told to let go ; consequently, by a 
remarkable sympathy which exists between our feelings 
and our words, such politicians soon become the dupes of 
their own opposition — like persons spoken of in Holy Writ, 
who, by a like process, are said " to be delivered up to a 
strong delusion, that they believe a lie ;" or as Shakspeare 
paraphrases the idea, " when we in our viciousness grow 
hard, the wise gods seal our eyes, — in our own filth drop 
our clear judgments, making us adore our errors." They 
deem the country ever on the brink of destruction, uncor- 
rected by experience, which is continually teaching them 
the falsity of preceding predictions ; for, like monomaniacs, 
they impute the failures to any cause but their diseased 
misconceptions. We have seen that when the world would 
not burn up, as Miller had predicted it would, the failure 
occasioned only the assignment of a new period for the pre- 
dicted catastrophe. So, we possess everywhere multitudes 
of politicians, who, though old, have never known the Gov- 
ernment perform a worthy action, or act from a worthy 
motive. The whole political course of our nation they 
deem a series of misdemeanors, for the perpetration of which 
the offenders escape punishment by only some strange 
infatuation of the people — the very doctrine of every Lu- 
natic Asylum, whose inmates deem themselves sane, and 
that the insane are at large. Nor can they learn by ex- 
perience that political power cannot in nature result from 
offences against patriotism ; hence they thus offend con- 
tinually, but continually see power within their reach. 
Their ascension robes are ever kept ready, but the millenium 

6* 



114 THE VICES OF POLITICAL MINORITIES. 

will not come, and instead thereof, public odium is showered 
on the unnecessary alarmists, till they have repeatedly 
abandoned their political name in the hope of losing their 
own identification therewith ; but exhibiting an entire 
childlike unsuspicion that, without a change of conduct, 
every new name must soon become as odious as the old. 
When only last year England and our country, tired of the 
old experiment of trying which could most harm the other, 
began to try whether they cannot reciprocate benefits — 
she by relaxing in our favor the qualified monopoly enjoyed 
b}^ her agriculturists, and we relaxing in her favor the 
qualified monopoly enjoyed by our manufacturers — the 
benevolent experiment was assailed by the madness of 
party, and, as usual, every conceivable calamity was pre- 
dicted from it. But again, as usual, the predictions are 
falsified. Manufactures, which were to perish, increase, de- 
spite of prophecy, till even our Utica, not easily stimula- 
ted to new enterprises, is allured by the yet great profits of 
such operations, and resounds with new factories. Why 
should not two kindred countries relieve each other ? 
Our agriculturists were becoming impoverished by the 
over-abundance of nature's bounties, while English manu- 
facturers were becoming impoverished by an excess of the 
productions of art. Why should not the full breast of ex- 
uberant youthful America be turned to the famished lips 
of its aged mother ? and why should we not receive from her 
superabundant wardrobe, the articles of which we are 
deficient? 

Al! the events of history which constitute epochs in our 
career of glory, were ushered into being under denuncia- 
tions like the foregoing. And if we turn from the events 
of our history to the historical heroes and statesmen by 
whom the events were achieved, we shall find that they 



THE VICES OF POLITICAL MINORITIES. 115 

Struggled against the denunciations of contemporary politi- 
cal monomaniacs. Nothing, indeed, is more intellectually 
healthful than, to note how the Mr. Polks of the day, whom 
we are invoked to hate and oppose, mellow by time into 
the patriots whom our descendants are to adore. Jackson, 
who barely escaped from being murdered to rid the world 
of a monster, is already less than half a monster deserving 
assassination, and more than half a patriot to be revered ; 
while Jefferson, once the base truckler to Napoleon in the 
purchase of Louisiana, in despoliation of poor, prostrate 
Spain, is so rectified by death and time, that the farmer of 
Marshfield, the gieat expounder of existing political mono- 
mania, is, if we may believe report, about to perform a 
pilgrimage from Massachusetts to the tomb of the sage of 
Monticello, an event with only one similitude in history,— 
the pilgrimage of Henry II. to the shrine of Thomas a 
Becket. 

Events also meliorate by time. The war with England, 
which in its prosecution, was deemed so unnecessary and 
wicked, that pulpits preached against it, States nullified it, 
and Hartford Conventions contemplated treason to arrest 
it, is now so traditionally glorious, as to be surpassed in 
public estimation by only the War of Independence. Even 
the recent obloquy against Texas' annexation is fading ; 
while indications are so fast accumulating of a succeeding 
universal popularity, that men who failed to be early in 
hailing the risen star, are beginning to feel in relation to 
their heresy, as the lukewarm friends of young Napoleon, 
when they saw him looming irresistibly into imperial splen- 
dor. And, doubtless, the war with Mexico, wicked, infa- 
mous, and unnecessary as it is deemed by political mono- 
maniacs, who can see nothing in their country's victories 
but murder, and nothing in Mexican aggressions but the 



116 THE VICES OF POLITICAL MINORITIES. 

expense of redressing them, will constitute, with its bril- 
liant victories and great social results, one of the prime 
glories of our posterity. Of these results ihe wilds of Cali- 
fornia* and New Mexico, whose acquisition is deprecated 
as useless and worthless, will yield their virgin bosom to 
millions of busy and happy men ; and while the district 
schools of those regions will make the children thereof 
read in good English the history of the present day, they 
will be taught to look back with astonishment at the Wil- 
mot Provisos of consumptive and stultified Abolitionism, 
and at the kmdred expedients, in Congress and out, that 
are now practised in reference to these regions, to frustrate 
God's injunction, " to increase and multiply, and subdue 
the earth." 

But political minorites are subject to a worse vice than 
any that we have yet specified. Man is so constituted that 
he cannot prophesy evil without exciting in himself a desire 
that the prophecy shall be fulfilled. The religious fanatics 
who lately predicted the destruction of the world, loathed 
the sun when it disappointed their predictions. From this 
cause more than from deficient patriotisni, arises the fiend- 
ish regret which is constantly apparent in many of our 
citizens, when political forebodings of evil are not real- 
ized : — when, for instance, manufacturers will prosper, 
despite the tariflf of '46; when the vomito would not, 
last summer, extirpate our armies in Mexico, nor a mutiny 
at sea arrest the California volunteers and frustrate their 
expedition. 

But another vice, of still graver import, is habitual to 
political minorities. A prophet will aid in the fulfillment 
of his prophecy rather than be convicted of error. Had 
the power of man been as gigantic as his perversity, the dis- 

♦California gold was unknown. 



THE VICES OF POLITICAL MINORITIES. 117 

ciples of Miller would have conflagrated the world to verify 
Miller's prediction. To this bad influence we must, in 
charity, attribute much of the destructiveness displayed by 
political minorities. When the deposits were removed 
from the United States Bank, and ruin had been predicted 
as a result, manufacturers closed their factories voluntari- 
ly, and dismissed their v/orkmen ; shipowners dismantled 
their ships, and discharged their seamen, exultingly alleg- 
ing that the Government had ruined them. The same 
madness on the part of manufacturers, began to evince 
itself in the early part of 1846. Opposition newspapers 
chronicled a few instances like the foregoing, which they 
hailed as the welcome harbingers of the predicted universal 
blight. And later still, after minority statesmen had 
reviled the President for claiming the whole of Oregon, a 
claim which he substantiated to every unprejudiced under- 
standing, they moved heaven and earth to prevent Eng- 
land from yielding her conflicting pretensions, and to intim- 
idate the President by threats of war, from adhering to 
his country's rights. 

But, finally, this article is written, not to irritate by crim- 
ination, but to cure, by holding naked up to vice its own 
image. While intellect attacks intellect, the encounter is 
always salutary. Controversy is never pernicious but 
when the feelings enlist in the fight. Ens^land, from whom 
we derive much of our knowledge, and most of our errors, 
is fast freeing herself from the poHtical evils of factious mi- 
norities, though they are still in full bloom with us. Her 
Legislature never exhibits now, a party in conflict with the 
interests ol" her empire. In her Oregon conflict with us, 
her Councils and public press exhibited no advocates for 
America, and while the faithful unanimity of her states- 
men was- urged in our Congress as a reason for yielding 



118 THE VICES OF POLITICAL MINORITIES. 

our pretensions, the orators who urged the argument 
seemed unaware that they were condemning their own 
conduct, which enabled England to adduce our want of 
unanimity, as a reason for persisting in her claims. And 
were England at war with Mexico, she would not possess 
a Mexican party giving aid and comfort to her enemies, 
by Parliamentary speeches and newspaper essays, that 
would heat her Mexican enemies and cool British patriot- 
ism. Party politics have been termed, the madness of 
many for the gain of a few. Would that we could rid our- 
selves, like England, of at least the madness of disloyalty 
to our country. And what a country is ours to care for ! 
Like the miraculous loaves and fishes of Holy Writ, the 
greater the number of persons it feeds, the greater is the 
aggregate of its surplus food. Well might one of our war- 
riors exclaim, " May our country always be right, but may 
she always be victorious, right or wrong!" President 
Adams preferred another sentiment : — " May our country 
always be victorious, but may she always be right, whether 
victorious or not !" But far from the heart or thought of the 
old man eloquent was any imprecation of military defeat on 
his country, in case any of her contests should happen to be 
unjust. Doubtless, in even so sad a case, he would say 
with David of old, '' let us not fall for our sins into the 
hands of man, but, if we must be punished, let us fall into 
the hands of the Lord, for his mercies are great." 



MERITS AN"D DEMERITS OF EXISTING PARTIES. 119 



MERITS km DEMERITS OE EXISTING PARTIES.^ 

Happily for our country, while partisans seek for spoils as 
recklessly as the Indian who prayed " Good Lord, or '' Grood 
Devil," just as he believed either would be most available ; 
and while partisans of the same faith struggle with each 
other for nominations, like hungry Mexicans over the re- 
mainder ration of a dead American, the mass of our citizens 
possess no interest in politics but the public good ; conse- 
quently the pohticians who advocate the best measures are 
the most Ukely to succeed at elections. This is wholesome 
in theory, and unless we conform to it in practice, we 
abandon the people's only check over public men. Let us 
hold them to this check, and permit no shirking or dodging 
of it in the hour of trial. We are just emerged from a 
war, and if Wliig office-seekers were right in aiding Mex- 
ico, let the people reward them for it ; but if they were 
disloyal to the public, let them not escape punishment by 
interposing an honest man between them and their mis- 
deeds ; like, recently, the miscreants of Paris, who, to escape 
punishment, thrust between themselves and the republican 
soldiery, children dragged for the purpose from the infant 
schools. 

Whig office-seekers have maintained also, that no farm- 
ers, manufacturers, merchants, or laborers can prosper 
till the protection tariff of 1842 is re-established. Why, 
then, withhold from the people the means of passing a 
judgment in favor of the tariff of 1842, in the person of a 
Presidential candidate who is identified therewith; instead 
of presenting to the people a candidate who confesses that 
his opinion is unformed on the subject ? Is this^not sub- 

* Published September 2, 1848. 



120 MERITS AND DEMERITS OF EXISTINa PARTIES. 

ordinating the tariff to the personal interests of ofRce- 
seekers? If manufacturers, therefore, and others who feel 
aggrieved by the tariff of 184^, would hereafter see their 
interests attended to, let them rebuke this shuffle, by ren- 
dering ineffectual the object for which it was undertaken. 
We may apply similar remarks to the sub-treasury question, 
and to public improvements by the General Govern- 
ment. The refusal to present to the people a Presidential 
candidate identified with these interests, is a refusal to 
permit the people to decide them ; and the people should 
resent the refusal as an invasion of their sovereignty ; and 
that office-seekers may be taught not to distract Congress 
with questions which they fear to present subsequently, to 
the people. 

The nomination of Gen. Taylor is objectionable further, 
by asking the people to receive a President with whose 
notions they are unacquainted ; as monarchists receive an 
hereditary ruler, " a pig in a poke," when our institutions 
permit us " to taste and try before we buy." And worse ; 
it proclaims in language unmistakable, that one successful 
campaign outweighs the merits of a life of civil services ; 
and when we consider who promulgate this baneful lesson, 
and when we contrast it with their professed horror of 
war, and previous denunciations of the nominee, is not the 
conclusion irresistible, that they notninated him in their 
hearts' disgust, and pandered to the supposed tastes and 
judgments of the people, whom they thus practically 
slandered ? 

From these defects in the Taylor nomination, if we look 
at the nominee, we find honesty of purpose, but great 
political deficiencies. He promises to veto no bill, ' except 
in cases of clear violation of the Constitution, or manifest 
haste and want of consideration in Congress," The Con- 



MERITS AND DEMERITS OF EXISTING PARTIES. 121 

stitution, however, forbids such truclding to Congress. A 
President is the focal point of the popular will, while every 
Congressman is only a single ray. The President, there- 
fore, acts under a responsibility of which no Congressman 
feels more than the two hundred and thirtieth part, and no 
Senator more than the sixtieth part. The Constitution, 
moreover, commands the President to sign no bill unless he 
shall approve of it. He must swear that he will act thus. 
A promised violation, therefore, of the Constitution, under 
such awful circumstances, is paraded by Whig editors, as 
an enticement to vote for Taylor. They surely mistake 
the virtue and intelligence of the people, — they mistake 
Henry Clay, who, -when smarting under repeated vetoes 
of a bank, denounced the veto power. He intended its 
abrogation by an amendment of the Constitution, not by 
a violation ; but intend what he might, the people will 
never place unchecked their interests at the log-rolling 
mercies of Congress. 

Another tenet of " the Taylor platform" promises, " that 
where Constitutional questions have been settled by the 
various departments of Government, and acquiesced in by 
the people, the President's objections ought not to be inter- 
posed thereto." Precedents have ever been the apology of 
usurpation, and to guard against them our Constitution 
provides a mode for its own amendment ; nor can it be 
altered otherwise, though the departments may wink, or 
the people sleep. A President, like Jefferson and Jackson, 
will veto back the State to its constitutional channel, 
how much soever unskillful pilots may have drifted it into 
forbidden shoals, or party madness wounded it, " with 
twenty mortal murders on its crown." Courts of law are 
subjected to precedent, because their errors can be cor- 
rected by new legislation, which is preferable to a vacil- 



122 MERITS AND DEMERITS OF EXISTING PARTIES. 

lating judiciary ; but if the constitutional errors of Congress 
and the judiciary are to be final, error becomes incurable, 
and the Constitution subvertible at the pleasure of its 
guardians. 

But we need not pursue farther, the crudities of the 
Taylor platform — " that the will of the people, as expressed 
through Congress, ought to be respected, and carried out 
by the Executive, on the tariff, currency, and improvements 
of highways, rivers, lakes and harbors:" — as though Gen. 
Taylor had yet to learn, that some of these objects involved 
constitutional questions to which the will of the people 
and their representatives must be subordinated ; as they 
have been often, by vetoes triumphantly sustained by the 
people, while the advocates of a latitudinous construction 
of the Constitution have been repudiated. Our superiority 
over Canada consists in the self-reliance of our States ; 
while Canada, like an infant, seeks to accomplish nothing 
great, without the assistance of her mother England. For- 
tunate for New- York was the constitutional scruples of the 
General Government against the construction of the Erie 
Canal. It called forth in our State, resources of which she 
had not been aware, and inspired the like in other States. 
The result is canals and rail-roads which the General 
Government could not have accomplished with all its re- 
venues ; and would not have accomplished in centuries, if 
it could. Suppose the General Government had yielded 
to the solicitations of Morse, and controlled his electric 
telegraph, would it at this moment have been reticulated 
over the Union, as we now see it? Had we always believ- 
ed with our ancestors, that the construction of churches, 
and the maintenance of a Christian ministry were within 
the competency of Government alone, would our country 
be dotted by churches ? Indeed, nothing prevents the 



MERITS AND DEMERITS OF EXISTING PARTIES. 123 

improvement of all our rivers, lakes, and harbors, but the 
persistence of partisans in a reliance on Congress, whose 
means are inadequate to the object. We have seen that 
all the resources of England could not even feed the poor 
of Ireland ; nor all the resources of France, the laborers of 
Paris. We may say of strict constructionists, what has 
been said of the framers of our National Constitution, that 
their invention was wiser than the inventors. We can 
turn to no result of a strict construction from which good 
has not resulted. It is invigorating our manufacturers, by 
a withdrawal from them of protective duties, and compell- 
ing them to possess, like honest farmers and mechanics, a 
capital, to reduce their heretofore wasteful salaries, and to 
be industrious, frugal, and prudent; by which means they 
more than counterbalance what they lose by a reduced 
tariff; whilst the consequent cheapness of their fabrics 
increases the consumption, thus benefiting both consumer 
and producer. 

Latitudinous constitutional constructions, and a belief 
that the people know less what is best for them than a few 
who are " godlike," and a notion that little fishes are made 
to be food for big ones, constitute the leprous distilments 
which have ever made Whig rule disastrous, without the 
Whigs knowing why ; while doctrines essentially opposite, 
(assumed perhaps accidentally at first,) have ever made 
Democratic rule prosperous. These opposite results are 
inherent in the nature of the two parties. We need not 
expect " figs from thistles" in politics, any more than in 
husbandry. Is any man still in doubt, then, as to his duty 
at the approaching election ? And let him look at the two 
parties as they stand, irrespective of all the foregoing. 
The Democrats present for the decision of the people, not 
" a man on a white horse," (leaving in doubt whether they 



124 MEEITS AND DEMERITS OF EXISTING PARTIES. 

rely for success most on the horse, or most on the man,) 
but they present Texas, acquired despite the intrigues of 
England and France. They present Oregon preserved 
almost entire from the grasp of Great Britain, aided, as 
as she was, by the advocacy of Whig statesmen and editors. 
They present California and New Mexico, with an area 
more than eleven times the size of our Empire State ; and 
acquired with so much honor, that to have been a subordi- 
nate, but successful hired instrument in its acquisition, is 
sufficient, (the Whigs being the judges,) to insure his elec- 
tion to the Presidency ; and to cover their sin of giving aid 
and comfort to the enemy during its acquisition. Moreover, 
every man who votes for Cass will know for what he is 
voting, as well as for whom. Is not the presentation honest, 
of a man with known principles ? Is it not respectful to 
to the people? Is it not the way to advance the people in 
political knowledge and accuracy of judgment ? Is it not 
ennobling the people, by casting on them the responsibility 
of the acts of the Government ? — and is it not wise ? for in 
the multitude of counsellors is wisdom, says God; and 
finally, is it not deserving the encouragement of success 
even for its own sake ? We say nothing of Cass, warrior 
as he is — if the people want a warrior ; statesman as he is, 
if the people prefer a statesman ; lest we thereby so exalt 
a man as to make him, at some future day, say to the people, 
as another candidate says substantially, in a recently pub- 
lished letter, that, as he was told " the people could not 
sustain themselves except by the use of his name, he re- 
luctantly lent it to them for that purpose." Away with 
such vanity! Who cares for a President, or the son of a 
President ; or both combined, — as we find them on one 
ticket ? Surely we are in the midst of a political mania, 
in which Presidential veneration is pitted against military 



MERITS AND DEMERITS OF EXISTING PARTIES. 125 

enthusiasm ; and both are pitted against the dignity and 
understandinoj of our people : but the paroxysm will pass 
away wilh the chill of next November;* and our politi- 
cians will awake as from a dose of exhilarating gas, and find, 
that instead of having made fools of the people, they have 
made fools of only themselves. 

* The elections were in November. 



126 THE SOUTHERN DISUNIONISTS. 



THE SOUTHERN DISUNIONISTS.* 

The term. " Disunionists" belongs properly not to states- 
nnen who are anxious to protect the rights of the South, but 
to those who, by continued aggressions on the Southern 
States, are coercing them to secede, in self-defence, from the 
Union. A Southern statesman is a unionist, in the best 
sense of the word, when he is contending against measures 
that must naturally lead to disunion. Our Union can be 
permanent only by leaving all local questions to the deci- 
sion of the locality. A. violation of this principle by Great 
Britain is driving Ireland into rebellion, and driving Can- 
ada into annexation to our Confederacy. The Emperor of 
Eussia might be sovereign over Poland, without any resist- 
ance on the part of tne Poles, if he would permit them to 
control their own internal affairs. Hungary would not 
have revolted against Austria, if Austria had not interfered 
with the domestic legislation of Hungary. All ancient 
history, and all modern, are full of the fall of Empires from 
an attempt of one people to legislate for another. An 
exemption from this error is the vital principle of our Con- 
federacy, and distinguishes it from all preceding Confeder- 
acies ; and if we preserve this principle unimpaired, the 
extension of our Confederacy from the Atlantic to the Pa- 
cific will add to our national strength, instead of impairing 
it, and benefit the whole, be the extension North or South. 

Such, then, being the conservative principle of non-inter- 
ference, and such the destructive principle of interference, 
nothing can be more patriotic than for the South to resist all 
Congressional legislation on the subject of local slavery. 

* Published December 17th, 1849. 



THE SOUTHERN DISUNIONISTS. 127 

The more a man loves the Union the more strenuous should 
be his resistance. Nor is any extent of resistance too great 
for so glorious an object ; and from what we know of the 
innate tyranny of human nature, we may be sure that the 
strong will oppress the weak, to the extent that the weak 
will submit to oppression. The South, therefore, should 
re-ist to the extent that God has endued them with the 
power of resistance; and w% may well hope, and well 
expect, that when such resistance shall be believed and 
seen, the true Disunionists will begin to count the value of 
the Union, and desist from an aggression which is properly 
and virtuously and patriotically producing consequences so 
dire. Nor should any com promises be endured. Compromises 
may patch up a temporary truce, as they have several times 
before ; but the great principle of non-interference with 
the peculiarities of localities, is too vital to be compromised. 
Nor need we criticise the Constitution very profoundly, 
to determine how far Congress may constitutionally inter- 
fere with local slavery. To the extent that Congress pos- 
sesses the power, the possession is an error ; and as the 
interference is fatal to the peace and perpetuity of the 
Union, the error should be resisted as much as though the 
interference were unconstitutional. We are not to swal- 
low poison by reason that we find it accidentally classed 
among wholesome food. Is it poison ? is the true question, 
and not how it is called, and by whom sanctioned. When 
the Constitution was made, the nature of such a Confeder- 
acy as ours was but dimly seen and understood. We may 
well wonder how the principle of non-interference with 
our domestic peculiarities came to be so well defined and 
so well guarded against ; and we shall have profited but 
little by our sixty years' experience of the nature of our 
■Confederacy, if we now seek interpretations of the Consti- 



128 THE CLAYTON-BULWER TREATY. 

tution to authorize a Congressional interference with local 
slavery — a subject which different parts of our country are 
educated to estimate differently, which different climates 
and productions naturally influence, by rendering slave 
labor lucrative in some places, and unprofitable in others ; 
and, moreover, a subject about which so much irritation has 
been artificially created, that no man reasons thereon with- 
out excitement of the most intense character. I look to 
the South with the hope that it wall take care that the 
Constitution shall receive no dangerous wound by their 
remissness. So long as the South shall insist on only main- 
taining its rights, the consequences of the struggle will rest 
with the inijaders, and not with the invaded. 



THE CLAYTON-BULWEE TKEATY.* 

A CERTAIN mother, when her sons began to wrestle, al- 
ways exclaimed, "Boys! stop there, for I know how that 
play will end.'' So when Congress begins to demonstrate 
that England has encroached on us beyond the point of 
honorable endurance, I always feel inclined to exclaim, 
Stop there, for I know how that agitation will terminate — 
and the following recital may make any one equally know- 
ing. Some years ago, England insisted on searching our 
vessels to ascertain if they were slavers. Our Government 
remonstrated, and Congress agitated, till both demonstrated 
that we could submit to the indignity no longer with 
honor. Now, when a nation arrives at this unfortunate 
point, it must fight or compromise, if the aggressor will not 

* Published February, 1856. 



THE CLAYTON-BDLWER TREATY. 129 

recede. England never recedes, but will always conapro- 
mise after a given manner, which consisted in this instance 
of permitting us to search ourselves ; a boon sometimes 
granted to a pugnacious man, who will turn his own pocket 
inside out as a substitute for being searched. For this self- 
debasing purpose we stipulated to keep constantly an 
armed squadron on the coast of Africa, in an unhealthy 
position and at great expense, thereby surrendering back 
to England a portion of our independence; for if we had 
desired such i squadron, we could have sent it without the 
urgency of a treaty obligation. 

Like the foregoing, was our agitation in relation to our 
North-eastern boundary. We remonstrated with England 
on the encroachments of New-Brunswick, till we again 
satisfied ourselves that we could submit no longer with 
honor ; and then again came the alternative of war or com- 
promise. Great Britain was willing to once more assist us 
out of the dilemma, and we accordingly ceded to her a 
large slice from the State of Maine, and called it a com- 
promise ; though it consisted of only substituting a definite 
encroachment for an indefinite one. 

Oregon afforded example No. 3. We agitated the usual 
indefinite claim thereto of Great Britain, till we became 
satisfied that our North-western boundary extended to 
North latitude 54* 40', as fixed by our treaty with Russia, 
and that we could no longer submit with honor to the joint 
occupation exercised by Great Britain. The alternative, 
therefore, was only war or compromise on the usual Eng- 
lish method, and we accordingly ceded to England a large 
portion of Oregon, as the less of two inevitable evils. 

This brings us to example No. 4 — our agitation in rela- 
tion to the "Monroe doctrine." We soon satisfied our- 
selves that our honor would be injured by permitting the 

8 



130 THE CLAYTON-BULWEK TREATY. 

English to colonize any part of Central America. War or 
compromise was again our only alternative, and the Clay- 
ton-Bulwer treaty was a panacea of the usual character ; 
for by it we consented to apply the Monroe doctrine to 
ourselves, for whom it was certainly never intended, if 
England would consent to adopt it against herself, for whom 
alone it was originally designed. 

Our Congressional rulers are now preparing an example 
No. 5. They are fast bringing themselves into the dilem- 
ma, that they must either fight Great Britain for not ad- 
hering to the Clayton-Bulwer treaty, or be dishonored. 
Everybody knows we shall not fight, and that a new com- 
promise to our increased injury will be the natural result 
of all the eloquence by which our Senators are demonstrat- 
ing to Bunkum their bravery and patriotism. Will nobody 
think of another alternative — of even the Farewell Address 
of Washington, in which he warns us against forming en- 
tangling alliances with foreign countries. He left us masters 
of our own conduct, not compelled to keep a squadron on 
the coast of Africa at the pleasure of Great Britain, or 
compelled to reject a Minister from Central America, be- 
cause the governing power there happens to be our own 
countrymen. Instead, then, of wrangling with Great 
Britain, because she refuses our interpretation of the Clay- 
ton-Bulwer alliance, let us be thankful to Providence for 
affording us the opportunity of cancelling the unwise treaty, 
and let us be rid of it forever and of all kindred entangling 
alliances. We had the wisdom to reject an extension to 
Cuba of the principle of the Clayton-Bulwer treaty, and 
now let us have the additional wisdom to reject the Clay- 
ton-Bulwer treaty itself. 



CHAPTER V, 

OF A UNITED STATES BaNK. 



THE UNITED STATES BANK CONTEOVEESY.* 
Twenty years are now elapsed since a British army 
sacked the city of Washington, and, disregarding the laws 
of civilized warfare, burnt the national structures dedicated 
to the arts and cliarities of life. These events were seized 
by our internal political enemies, to prove that we ought to 
supplicate for peace. At that dark moment I was honored 
by being Secretary of a Democratic meeting of this county, 
which assembled to declare, that the more the country was 
afflicted, the tighter we would cling to it. 

You, Mr. Chairman,! presided at the meeting. Like 
myself, you are not prominent in ordinary political contests. 
From seeing you to-night, 1 trust you think with me, that 
the present is a revival, by similar men, of the designs 
which that meeting intended to counteract. The politi- 
cians of that day sought power through the distresses pro- 
duced by a foreign invasion. They , seek power now, 
through the distresses produced by a Bank invasion. The 
war might at all times have been easily sustained by the 
undivided energies of the people ; and the present enemy 
is too contemptible to be deemed a national opponent, but 
foi the allies which it finds in the United States Senate, 
who, palsying all the energies of the General Government, 
seem willing to surrender up, bound fast, the noble Eagle 

* Spoken at a Public Meeting, March, 1834. t Hon. Nathan Williams. 



132 THE UNITED STATES BANK CONTROVERSY. 

of the world, "to be hawked at by a mousing owl and 
killed." 

I care not now whether the Bank be constitutional, or 
unconstitutional ; a necessary fiscal agent, or unnecessary ; 
whether the public deposits were rightfully removed by 
Government, or wrongfully — these questions are all merged 
in the greater issue, of whether the country shall be 
coerced to grant the Bank a re-charter. Even Senators 
urge the renewal as the only alternative against ruin ; while 
to give efficacy to the position, the Bank, with the presses 
in its pay or favor, and the politicians in its interest, are 
shaking all the pillars in the edifice of Credit, willing to 
crush community in a general ruin, rather than fail of a 
re-charter. 

In this contest two distinct agents exist, and they 
should not be confounded, — one is, the Bank seeking a re- 
charter; the other, politicians seeking power. The Bank 
may suppose, like the fabled fly on the coach box, that the 
clouds which blacken the horizon are all of its own crea- 
tion ; but great as are its powers of mischief, and conscious 
as it may be of exerting them, the Bank is not entitled to 
the bad fame of all the ruin — a portion of it being due to 
partisan newspapers, who, also acting on the principle of 
the fabled flv, may think that the ruin is all the result of 
their efforts. That they thus think, I possess some proof in 
a letter which, as the presiding officer of a Bank in this 
city, I received a few days since, from the editor of a lead- 
ing opposition daily newspaper of this State, seeking a 
discount, coupled with the annunciation^ (delivered to me, 
forsooth, in confidence,) "that one word from our papers 
here would blow the country Banks to atoms/' 

While, then, the Bank is thrust forth as too strong for 
the nation to resist, we must be cautious and not attribute 



THE UNITED STATES BANK CONTROVERSY. 183 

to it greater powers than it possesses. Could the Bank 
alone h^.ve inflicted sufficient ruin, a partisan press would 
not have volunteered a useless assistance — few men being 
so desperately wicked as to murder for the mere love of 
slaughter. 

Previously to the first of February last, when the Bank 
Commissioners published their Annual Report, the interior 
of our State had experienced no pecuniary distress. The 
Eeport, though expressly announcing a secure situation of 
the Banks, was greeted from nearly all the presses in the 
interest of the United States Bank, by a sudden, simulta- 
neous, and rancorous attack on our State Banks. The 
attack has well been termed incendiary; for the fire-brands 
thus scattered among a previously excited community- 
seemed designedly cast to create a general destruction. 
So fierce was the attack, and so urgent the danger, that the 
Banks, in a period but little exceeding a month, reduced 
their circulation three millions of dollars. Money vanished 
as by enchantment ; while the agents of the wicked con- 
spiracy found, to their surprise, that the Banks, the objects 
of their malignity, were safe ; but all commerce was pros- 
trated. 

As we must not measure the power of the Bank by the 
distress the country is suifering, so we must not judge of 
its merits by the hosannas that are heard in its praise. The 
Bank, whatever it may vain-gloriously think, is, both in 
Congress and out, but an instrument in the hands of a 
party, who use it to acquire a power with which the people 
steadily refuse to entrust them. A party with as many 
names as a swindler^ and which changes jhem as often; 
a party whose objects are in as constant a flux as its name, 
raving for war, and when war was declared, raving for 
peace ; refusing to drive an invader from our own shores, 



134 THE UNITED STATES BANK CONTROVERSY. 

and subsequently goading the country to civil war on some 
abstract question of Indian rights. This party, so furious 
for a re-charter of the United States Bank, would have 
been equally furious against the Bank, if the Government 
had wished to re-charter it. Even so void of political prin- 
ciple is this party, that General Jackson, whom they pour- 
tray as a demon, might become their candidate for the 
next Presidency, if he would only commit some act that 
would lose him the confidence of the country. 

The enemies of the President assert that opposition to 
the Bank rests with the President alone. This is untrue. 
He is but vigorously executing what the people have de- 
creed. And now that he is periling his all to accomplish 
our own wishes, shall we desert him for his faithfulness ? 
In the execution of our own plans, shall we, because diffi- 
culties are discovered, make him our scape-goat, and join 
in the cry to crucify him ? Worthy of all infamy must 
that man be who would act thus ; and especially any citi- 
zen of a State, whose voice alone, speaking in 1811, through 
George Clinton, pronounced the death of the former Bank 
— an event which demonstrates that we, at least, date our 
hostility to such institutions beyond the commencement of 
General Jackson's era. 

Up to the present pecuniary distress, the people were 
opposed to a re-charter of the Bank. W hat has occurred 
since, to make the Bank more lovely in our eyes ? Are we, 
like spaniels, to be whipt into affection ? No ; if the people 
have become willing to re-charter the Bank, the change has 
been produced by coercion. Like a man with a dagger at 
his throat, thousands may be willing to comply with the 
wishes of the hand that holds the dagger ; but Andrew 
Jackson is not one of these. 

History seems to prove that Providence exerts a more 



THE UNITED STATES BANK CONTKOVERSY. 135 

than ordinary care of us. During the Eevolutionary War 
it gave us a Washington. During the last war, and the 
aggressions which led to it, Providence placed successively 
at the head of our nation Jefferson and Madison, who, in a 
degree almost superhuman, enjoyed the confidence of the 
country, and thus enabled us, against a disordered curren- 
cy, an empty treasury, and internal treason, to cope with 
the naval power that had subdued all Europe, and with the 
armies that conquered the foremost man of all the world. 
And now when every faction, rushing from every quarter, 
is striving to produce a whirlwind that shall destroy all 
credit, all confidence, all property, all enterprise and all 
prosperity, unless the will of the people will yield to the 
will of a minority, Providence has placed at the helm of 
State a man who, unlike Ulysses of old, is not compelled 
to stop his ears, lest he should be swayed from duty by 
clamor; nor, like the same Ulysses, forced to beg his friends 
to sustain him, lest he should desperately yield the govern- 
ment to destruction, but standing on the energy of his own 
purposes, is able to sustain not only himself in this trying 
moment, but to sustain his friends, and to hold back even 
the nation, should it be inclined to bow its crest at the bid- 
ding of a creature of its own bounty. 

Our immediate representative in Congress has well said 
in his place : " Perish credit, perish commerce, perish the 
State institutions, give us a broken, a deranged and a 
worthless currency, rather than the ignoble tyrann}^ of an 
irresponsible corporation." But we honor the Bank over 
much, if we suppose Such sacrifices are necessary to quell 
its power. Let people who desire relief, cease from memo- 
rializing Congress for a restoration of the public deposits, 
and for riveting the Bank on the nation by a renewed 
charter. As well may such petitioners attempt to quench 



136 THE BANK PANIC AND PRESSURE. 

fire by pouring on it oil, as attempt to allay the fears which 
exist in Congress against the Bank by petitions, which 
show fhat the Bank is able to coerce such multitudes into 
its support. Every petition is a new monument of the 
power of the Bank, and an additional argument against its 
continuance. Eather than this, let the people of every 
State call on their Legislatures to remove our pecuniary 
difficulties. New- York alone has but to will what it 
wishes, and the wish will be accomplished. With an 
ability to create, at a moment and without cost, a stock 
that is equivalent to gold and silver, let the State not stand 
idly by, while an infuriated enemy is ravaging the coun- 
try.* The ground on which the Bank advocates stand, in 
at least our State, will be thus removed from under them, 
and they will be left suspended as monuments of disap- 
pointed malice. 



THE BANK PANIC AND PKESSUEE.t 

Mow wonderfully the goodness of Providence, in the 
abundant harvests of the past summer, contrasts with the 
wickedness of man in the afflictions of the last winter ! 
Heaven, by a dispensation of more than ordinary general 
health, tranquillity, contentment and prosperity, seems to 
rebuke the imprecation of war, pestilence and famine, 
which an infuriated statesman dared once to utter, and 
which the events of the last winter sought to produce, as 

* On the 19th day of the ensuing month, the Legislature of New-York passed an act to 
raise six millions of dollars on State Stock, and to loan the mone}' to the people of the 
State. The aid thus furnished was of essential service in restoring public confidence, 
t Published October 6, 1834, and addressed to the Hon. Nathan Williams. 



THE BANK PANIC AND PRESSURE. 137 

far as mischief so gigantic is placed within the power of 
in an. 

The cruel acts under which the country suffered, may 
have been commenced without concert, but they resulted 
in a daring consjiracy to obtain, by a sort of Sabine rape, 
the suffrages of the people. An oroanized party became 
as intent to rule or ruin, as a band of mutineers who should 
hold a torch to fire the powder magazine of a ship, if the 
captain would not yield to their control. We beheld a 
reversal of the common principles of human nature. Men 
rejoiced at their own embarrassments, and merchants pro- 
claimed commerce at an end. Notes of the most solvent 
Banks were denounced, in the same breath that cried, like 
Sarah of old, '' give us money or we die!" Bankruptcy 
no longer excited pity, but undisguised gratification. The 
more meritorious the victim, the louder was the shout of 
triumph ; the more stable the fabric that sunk before the 
storm, the more diff'used became the exultation. Malignity 
emulated death in its love of a shining mark. 

While these events were transpiring within every man's 
observation, falsehood and exaggeration filled the opposition 
newspapers, and made terror and distress epidemic. A sort 
of friendly cross-fire was carried on between distant cities. 
The North published lies in aid of the panic at the South, 
and the South published lies in aid of the panic at the 
North. A run on banks for specie was recommended, and 
for the avowed purpose of producing ruin. Like skillful 
Inquisitors, who are said to know the parts of a human 
body that are most sensitive to torture, editors directed the 
panic with equal skill to the Banks and individuals which 
were the most accessible to injury. 

A more infuriated moment no country ever exhibited. 
Mechanics dismissed their journeymen for exercising a 

8* 



138 THE BANK PANIC AND PRESSUEE. 

freedom of opinion, and merchants dismissed their laborers. 
A sloop load of wheat was willfully precluded a market in 
the city of New- York, and wilHuily returned to Albany. 
Multitudes of men, under the name of Committees, were 
poured into Washington to intimidate the President, and to 
debate, personally, with him on the discharge of his consti- 
tutional duties. Legislation in Congress ceased, and the 
speeches of the members were directed to the people. Its 
sittings were declared interminable, and the country was 
declared in a state of revolution. 

So systematic were the efforts which I have barely enu- 
merated, so furious was the onset, and so specially was our 
State the object of attack, that great and general interests 
escaped unscathed by only the majestic efforts of the State 
itself — which nobly opened its veins to our exhausted 
mouths, and revived credit at its expiring gasp ; and this, 
too, while tumult and multitude, ravenous for our destruc- 
tion, clamored, like disappointed demons, at the act which 
was snatching us from their grasp. 

We had all heard of the power of money, but, till last 
winter, we possessed no conception of its actual power. 
We now understand why, in every nation, political power 
has ever existed on the side which preponderated in wealth. 
We understand why the Commonalty of England (the 
richest private individuals that the world ever saw) is more 
than a counterpoise to the King and Nobles. The potency 
of money was as unexpected a discovery to our enemies as 
to us. They found it pertaining to the Bank, as accident- 
ally as Aladdin discovered the power which pertained to 
his magic lamp. The use which our enemies made of the 
discovery we have seen, but what use shall we make of it? 
This question gives to the approaching election its import- 
ance. If we shall be defeated in the coming contest, poll- 



THE BANK PANIC AND PRESSURE. 139 

tical power exists only nominally in the majority of the 
people, but substantially in the majority of wealth. The 
engine which shall prove too strong for the people in this 
contest, will continue in the hands of our enemies for all 
future occasions, and renewed with, perhaps, a double po- 
tency. If we yield to any imaginary expediency, and 
permit the enemy to triumph, expediency willj compel our 
compliance hereafter. The deliberate sentiments of the 
people will never be more repugnant than they are now to 
the objects of the enemy ; the Government to be sup, 
planted will never possess more strongly than the present 
the affection of the nation. With not as man}^ representa- 
tives in our last Legislature as Columbus carried to Spain 
for specimens of a new race, if our enemies can now out- 
number us. what hopes can we indulge in any future con- 
test ? If such a revolution has within a short year been 
effected by means of a pecuniary pressure, our elections 
are useless ; let us abandon the empty ceremony, and for- 
getting, if we can, the glories that are past, prepare our 
children to endure the loss of their birthright. 

I even care not whether the Bank last winter produced 
the pressure voluntarily or involuntarily ; whether it warred 
against us offensively or defensively; enough for us is the 
fact that, like the enraged elephant which was recently 
shot at Exeter 'Change, the Bank is subject to paroxysms, 
and possessed of powers which render its preservation 
inconsistent with public safety. The showman killed his 
elephant, though on it depended the sustenance of his wife 
and children ; and we must kill ours, how occasionally so- 
ever it may administer to our convenience, and how kindly 
soever it may occasionally employ its huge strength — but 
especially must we kill it, since its trunk is influenced by 
our enemies, who have shown that they will wield it for our 
destruction. 



140 THE BANK PANIC AND PRESSURE. 

Preceding elections have presented to us no greater 
calamity than the temporary misrule of our opponents ; but 
the present election is to deliver us to them in perpetuity. 
The game is great, and desperately have they played it. If, 
as they openly assert, the people will rather part with prin- 
ciples than with money, we are indeed lost. The experi- 
ment will be tried effectually. The seeds of distress and 
ruin were sown widely and liberally. We have been 
ploughed with affliction and harrowed with anxiety. The 
exhausted laborers, as they travelled homeward from their 
seats in Congress, could exclaim with Thomson's farmer — 

" Be gracious Heaven ! for now laborious man 
Has done his part." 

They are waiting for the crop. With the peopleis the 
increase, and the people owe them an abundant harvest. 
Our opponents have enjoyed their usual feasts of anticipa- 
tion, while the reality, to which the people are accustomed, 
is hastening forward. Come it must, and these tyrants in 
will, but impotents in power, will stand exposed, like a gam- 
bler who has shown his cards, and been found to have brag- 
ged on an empty hand. Let them again close their shops,* 
and marshal their dependents ; burst open again the arsenal, 
and dragoon the New- York voters; the great inquest of 
the nation is approaching. "j" They, who had no eye to pity, 
who laughed at our calamity, must be rebuked. All the 
interests of the State, agricultural, commercial, and me- 
chanical, cry for judgment. All that is honest in politics, 
all that is lovely in patriotism, all that is desirable in self- 
government, call on the people to scatter the discordant fac- 
tions, who, uniting for no comnron end but the destruction 

* The shops in the City of New-York were closed , that the occupants might attend 
a Political Meeting held at " Castle Garden." 
t The Presidential election was to be held in November. 



THE BANK PANIC AND PRESSURE. 141 

of men whom the people honor, have, for months, raged 
like a pestilence. 

Grant even the position of our enemies, that Heaven was 
afflicting us with wicked rulers, would men of ordinary 
feelings have prowled around the country at such a mo- 
ment, insulting the community with offers of relief on con- 
ditions of political apostacy ? Was a period of universal 
trouble the time to drive so hard a bargain ? And did, indeed, 
no kinder intentions move their souls at our distress, than 
to plant their heels upon our necks ? Truly they asked 
too much, when they required that we should accept this 
calamity in exchange for any other. They calculated too 
strongly, also, on our credulity, when they required that 
the Government should be subverted by reason of the pres- 
sure, and that they should be promoted for augmenting it — 
for augmenting it designedly and wickedly, when the worst 
which they allege against the Government is, that it pro- 
duced the pressure ignorantly. 

In every nation, its inhabitants are relatively intelligent, 
not in the degree of their relative wealth, but of their rela- 
tive political privileges. Those who are politically disqual- 
ified, are everywhere the baser portion of the comm.unity.. 
They are disqualified, not because they are base, but they are 
base because they are disqualified. The Greeks became 
corrupt as soon as they were enslaved by the Turks, and 
they became elevated in character the moment they cast 
off the Turkish subjection. Our institutions, as modified 
by Democracy, give to all men equal privileges ; and to a 
great extent, all men here are equally virtuous, peaceable^ 
industrious, and intelligent. By affixing so beneficial a 
result to so benevolent a policy, Heaven fairly bribes men 
not to oppress each other. 

Political disqualifications are also as unjust to the merits 



142 THE BANK PANIC AND PRESSURE. 

of the poor, as prejudicial to their morals. In war the 
country is defended on sea and land by the poor almost 
alone ; while the arts of peace are prosecuted mainly by 
their strength and intelligence. Property seems not even 
a necessary ingredient in human preeminence. It is essen- 
tial to the importance of only secondary intellects. The 
prodigies of genius, from Homer to Scott, have generally 
been poor ; while, from Aristides to Jefferson, statesmen and 
warriors, who shine the most brilliantly in history, are those 
whose pecuniary effects have been insufficient to disburse 
their funeral expenses. 

. But the present political contest exhibits a new reason 
in favor of universal suffrage. What patriot but rejoiced 
last winter that the destinies of our country were not de- 
pendent on those alone who are most affected by a pecu- 
niary pressure ? A rich mechanic told me that, though 
conscientiously opposed to the Bank, his necessities had 
induced him to petition for its re-charter. 

In the nominations of our opponents, we discover preju- 
dices which are analogous to those against universal suf- 
frage. Policy has lately compelled them to lower the 
standard of age, wealth and dignity, which they have 
heretofore deemed necessary to their candidates. The men 
whom we exalt are such as our opponents have usually 
stigmatized as new men. Had Satan devised a system to 
debase mankind, he could have produced no plan more 
efficacious than that which estimates a man by the quali- 
ties of his ancestors. A stammerer may by eflbrt become 
eloquent ; but when we are required to overcome the de- 
fects of ancestry, we are without hope, and hence without 
motive for improvement. Nothing is more benevolent, 
nothing more politic, than to dignify the obscure ; we 
thereby stimulate to virtuous emulation the class of society 
which must ever constitute the mass of every population. 



THE BANK PANIC AND PRESSURE. l43 

Another heresy of our adversaries is hostility to foreign- 
ers, towards whom they sigh ior the fourteen years proba- 
tion of Federalism — the probation which deferred the hope 
till the heart was sick — which, with the tree of life full in 
view, hedged it around, lest men should pluck its fruit and 
live. Equality of rights breathes into our adopted citizens 
a new-born self-respect and a new-born ambition. No 
matter from how much oppression they escaped, their 
moral sense dilates like air from which a circumambient 
pressure is removed ; and speedily ennobled by the privi- 
leges which have ennobled you, they assume the dignity 
which God intended when he made man in his own image. 

Such, briefly, are the political principles of our oppo- 
nents, but their acts are more culpable than their principles ; 
and hence men who should, from their wealth, learning 
and talents, be a blessing in the councils of their country, 
are become so justly obnoxious to the majority of their 
fellow-citizens, as to constitute a proscribed class, and to 
live like aliens in the bosom of their native land. Ever 
against the country, their activity is always ominous of 
evil, like certain birds whose presence admonishes sailors 
of an approaching storm. They possess every virtue in 
private life, but, as politicians, misfortune has demoralized 
them. They may see in themselves how political exclu- 
sions debase a people. So disparaging, indeed, is their 
own estimate of their own popular standing, that like the 
plebeians of Rome, who never presumed to nominate a 
consul from their own ranks, our opponents have long 
ceased to nominate a governor Irom their own party. 
Even their present nominee is indebted for this distinction 
to a saving difference in his politics. They commenced in 
1804 this self-abasement, with the nomination of Aaron 
Burr, and though I was not old enough to possess a voice 



144 THE BANK PANIC AND PRESSURE. 

in the contest, I remember the qualms with which they 
yielded their virgin honor. 

This slip from virtue produced its usual declension, and 
they became three years thereafter an easy conquest to 
Morgan Lewis. Every political libertine has since had 
them at his beck, and they are now arrived at the humilia- 
tion which solicits a nominal head, while the sin of their 
connection blasts every man who consents to the unen- 
viable distinction. The ancient Pharisees were accused of 
compassing the earth to make a proselyte, but our enemies 
will encompass I he earth to make a traitor. A proselyte 
will not answer. The value of the conquest consists in his 
being uncontaminated by their doctrines. Such a man 
will be used at public meetings, or (if a naturalized citizen) 
to publish addresses to his countrymen. The poor culprit, 
who in the days of his virtue was insignificant, revels in 
notoriety. His seducers having shown him in triumph to 
his former companions till the conquest is stale, cast him 
loathingly away. 

Remarkable as our enemies are for mistaking public sen- 
timent, the error is peculiarly conspicuous in the effects 
which they expect from such a seduction. They imagine 
that some man among us can lead his fellow-citizens. If a 
man sagaciously discovers the direction in which the peo- 
ple mean to move, he may, by marching before them, seem 
to lead. The moment, however, he moves where the peo- 
ple dislike to travel, he finds himself marching alone. 
New-York, at its last charter election, furnished a striking 
illustration, except that the parties who were sought to be 
led were Irish — the last men who will swerve from De- 
mocracy. They come among us ravenous for liberty, and 
like eagles just fleshed, they are neither to be driven nor 
enticed from the quarry. 



THE BANK PANIU AND PRESSURE. 145 

The most to which our enemies pretend in any contro- 
versy, is the demerits of their opponents ; and hence arises 
a detraction of public measures and a slander of official 
servants, subversive of all confidence in public documents. 
They have lately seized on the Post-Office with the spirit 
of a spider, who, after much watching, has caught a fly. Of 
Major Barry, the Post-Master General, the little which I 
know entitles him to my gratitude, and to yours. Pre- 
viously to October, 1830, the mails which were destined for 
New-York, and which arrived at Albany on Saturday, had 
to lie there till Monday. A man having a note to pay on 
Monday, and wishing to remit the money by mail, was 
compelled to have his money in New- York by Saturday. 
The aggregate loss of interest to the whole community 
must have been great. Unacquainted with Major Barry, 
I ventured to direct him to the evil, and immediately he 
answered me as follows : — '' Instructions shall be given to 
the Postmaster at Albany, to put up a mail for New- York 
on Sundays as well as other days. The advantages to 
Utica, and other towns west of Albany, are most apparent, 
and shall be continued to them." Previously to Major 
Barry's administration, only one mail passed daily from 
Albany to Buffalo, while now two mails pass daily. The 
intercommunication of the Union has been aggregately 
augmented by him in nearly the same ratio. He stands 
eminent among the benefactors of the age; having accom- 
plished more for the diffusion of intelligence than any other 
man now living. Still, if his zeal has exceeded the statu- 
tory limit,"^ let the enemy enjoy the discovery. I am not 
the man to snatch a bone from the mouth of famine. But 
I pray that the law may be altered, for nothinsj is more 

* At this period the expenditures of the General Post-Office were limited to the post- 
age received. 



146 THE BANK PANIC AND PRESSUKE. 

unjust than that the expenditures of the Post-Office shall 
not exceed its receipts. Why should postage be wrenched 
Irom the hand of labor, to transmit without expense to 
Government,, the vast correspondence of the Executive 
departments and of Congress ? By a curious fatahty, the 
only instance in which our enemies have discovered a 
violation of law, is where the violation is better than the 
law. 

But the great instrument on which our enemies rely for 
elevation, is the demerits of the President. They have 
thrust the sword of malice again and again in the bosom 
that was bared in the hour of peril to his country's foes. 
If the dagger of an assassin had, last winter, struck his 
heart,* what would have been the feelings of the nation ? 
Yet dishonor, worse than death, was sought to be inflicted 
on him, and the perpetrators ask the reward of our suf- 
frages. Are they mad, or have they so long abused their 
consciences with calumny against him, that they believe 
their own conceits ? 

The President is competent to his own defence. When 
the giants of the Senate piled mountain on mountain to 
subvert him, his Protest overwhelmed the rebellious spirits 
under the mountains of their creation. There let them lie, 
blighted monuments of ill-directed ambition ! He has 
nothing to ask of his countrymen but affection ; nothing to 
fear but their disapprobation. Yes, one thing more he has 
to fear, if he should act unworthily — the upbraidings of his 
conscience, for tarnishing a reputation of whose lustre 
history furnishes but few examples. He will not offend 
this monitor. He will stand erect amid the tempest of 
politics, though it shall sweep before it all else that our 
enemies desire to prostrate. Him it cannot injure. His 

* An attempt was made to assassinate the President. 



THE BANK PANIC AND PRESSURE. 147 

sun has passed its meridian height, and the hemisphere is 
bright with nothing but its fast-descending glories. 

The pohtical principles of our opponents are not more 
adverse to the social character of man, than they are to 
the permanency of our institutions. History is full of the 
wreck of such Constitutions as they desire to inflict on us ; 
and while they predict anarchy from our doctrines, the 
most which they promise us from their own, is protracted 
decay and a lingering dissolution. But shall man never 
try the experiment of whether he can live under equal 
privileges "^ Must we be in haste to assume that our insti- 
tutions are too benevolent for our nature ; and can we not. 
after all hope shall cease, submit to the inequalities which 
have ever abused and debased the mass of men ? Till that 
evil day, the party, under whatever name it may be desig- 
nated, whose principles tend most to equalize the political 
conditipn of the rich and the poor, the high-born and the 
low, shall receive my support, through good report and 
through bad, in its prosperity and in its adversity, in its 
mistakes and in its corrections. I will believe that a ma- 
jority of our fellow-citizens think with me on these import- 
ant subjects, and as our enemies have ever failed to win us 
to their power by love, so they will not subdue us by a 
pecuniary pressure. 

How implacable must be their aversion to the spirit of 
our institutions, that no motive of interest or ambition 
(and their efforts for power evince their ambition) can in- 
duce them to amalgamate in sentiment with the mass of 
their fellow-citizens, and at least to try a scheme of govern- 
ment which they ought to know cannot be subverted ! 
How strongly biassed also by prejudice must be their judg- 
ment, that no experience can restrain them from the hope- 
less annual experiment of trying, by some petty change of 



148 . THE BANK PANIC AND PRESSUEE. 

name, to evade the settled hostility of the coimtry to their 
principles. In the present contest they keep themselves 
and their doctrines studiously out of view. They talk o[ 
punishinn; Executive usurpation, but not a word about 
wresting the Government from the hands of the Democra- 
cy. They seem to be not ignorant that this result is more 
repugnant to the people than any other which is in contro- 
versy. If the present election placed nothing at issue, but 
whether General Jackson should be sustained, gratitude 
for his services would lead the people to sustain him — in- 
dignation against the means by which his opponents seek 
power, would lead the people to sustain him ; but the contro- 
versy would not possess the interest which now pertains to 
it. The people support General Jackson, because they 
thereby support principles which they deem essential to 
the permanency of our Government, and to their own self- 
importance as individuals. 

We are called Jackson men, but Jackson may, with 
more propriety, be called our man. Like the flag which 
Lawrence nailed to the mast, we retain General Jackson 
in his position, because the retention decides whether the 
people shall be surrendered to their enemy or remain 
ascendant. Jackson will be sustained! In this blessed 
land, human nature may yet strive to improve its condition. 
The blighting principles of aristocracy cannot be forced on 
us, to arrest the thrilling experiment of equal privileges to 
all men. 



THE SUSPENSION OF SPECIE PAYMENTS. 149 

THE SUSPENSION OF SPECIE PAYMENTS.* 

We are debating whether the Banks shall or not desig- 
nate a day on- which they will resume specie payments. In 
favor of a resumption, we have been reminded of our moral 
duty to resume. The duty is conceded, but gentlemen 
seem to think it may be dispensed with by conflicting du- 
ties of superior urgency. We are accordingly told that a 
return to specie payments , before exchanges fall to a par 
with specie, will cause such a contractijn of Bank loans, as 
will depress every branch of national prosperity. 

To my understanding, we are not debating the true issue. 
We are inipelled to a resumption of specie payments by 
legal obligations. Who has conferred on us the right to 
dispense with our legal obligations? We are answerable 
to the law when we refuse specie, but we are not answer- 
able, legally or morally, for the contraction of Bank dis- 
counts, so long as the contractions are necessary to enable 
us to fulfil our legal obHgations. If the laws which require 
us to pay specie inflict an injury on the people, let the peo- 
ple ask a legal remedy ; and let the Legislatures, ana let 
Congress, find a remedy if they can. Let not Banks pre- 
sume to stand between the people and the law-makers, and 
to decide that they will not obey such laws, as they deem 
injurious to the people. The people ask no such protection 
at our hands. They receive our illicit services, I admit; 
but they receive, and complain while they receive. Like 
the unhappy females who nightly throng our streets, and 
whom also expediency may seek to justify, we are reviled 
and abused by even those whom we serve. 

But why do we debate the morality and expediency of a 

* Spoken at a Convention of Bank Representatives from all parts of the Union, held 
at New-York in 1637. 



150 THE SUSPENSION OF SPECIE PAYMENTS. 

resumption of specie payments, when the law is threaten- 
ing us with its penalties ? The State of New- York has 
given its Banks a respite till May, and conferred even that 
boon at the expense of a total inhibition of Bank dividends. 
The owners of thirty-five millions of the most 'active capi- 
tal of the State, are thus compelled to bear, not only all the 
evils of the times in common with other men, but the ad- 
ditional evil of receiving no interest on their capital — an 
interest to which many of them look for the support of 
their families. As well, then, may the convict, with the 
halter around his neck, debate the expediency of capital 
punishments, as we debate the expediency of a restoration 
of specie payments. He may debate, but he will be exe- 
cuted. 

Assuming, then, that both our legal and moral duties to 
resume specie payments cannot be denied — and they have 
not been denied in any of our discussions — the true question 
which we ought to consider is, our physical ability to re- 
sume specie payments. This only proper topic of discus- 
sion, has been wholly overlooked ; though, incidentally, the 
ability has been, by most of us, admitted. Many of the 
States here represented have rather vied with each other 
in announcing early periods at which they can resume, were 
they to disregard its consequences on the community. 
Pennsylvania professes an ability to resume in April ; New- 
York in March ; and some other States at even an earlier 
period. 

But while I insist that our physical abilit}^ to resume, is 
alone the question on which we should deliberate, in order 
to designate the period at which we will resume, I dissent 
from the arguments which have been adduced to prove the 
disastrous effects of a resumption. We are referred to the 
existing rate of exchanges, and we are told that till ex- 



THE SUSPENSION OF SPECIE PAYMENTS. 161 

cha-nges fall we cannot resume, and continue to commerce 
its necessary facilities. 

But are not gentlemen aware that instead of Banks being 
thus controlled by exchanges, the exchanges are to a great 
degree controlled by Banks, through the means of a con- 
traction of loans. This must be a practical truth, or Banks 
would be continually suspending and resuming. Money 
when scarce cannot be obtained by many who would other- 
wise remit. Local purposes and speculations also, in such 
times, divert money from being remitted: and hence ex- 
change falls from a diminution of purchasers. Exportable 
produce falls also, from the scarcity of money ; and hence 
presents a profitable substitute for bills of exchange, and 
still further depresses them. Banks, therefore, are always 
able to defend themselves against an upward tendency of 
exchanges ; and hence the influence which Banks will now 
be required to exercise over the rate of exchanges, is but 
the ordinary exercise of a long accustomed power over the 
money-market. 

But in relation to our foreign debt, on whose magnitude 
the present and prospective high price of exchange is pre- 
dicated by the gentlemen opposed to us, I dissent from the 
statistics which have been produced, to show the existence 
of such a debt. The calculations which we have heard, 
relate to only the commercial debt that is due to Europe ; 
and in relation to that debt the calculations may be correct ; 
but we throw wholly out of view the millions ot State 
Stocks which are daily being created by the several States, 
and which directly or indirectly, are sent to Europe. We 
throw out of view, also, the millions loaned in Europe to 
our private corporations — the millions that are sent here 
from Europe for investments, and the millions that are 
brought here by emigrants, and the millions of the existing 



152 THE SUSPENSION OF SPECIE PAYMENTS. 

commercial debt that are due from suspended and insolvent 
debtors. That these items — and I can name others — more 
than counter-balance the commercial balaiice, of which we 
have heard so much, is demonstrable from the otherwise 
anomalous fact that, since the suspension of specie payments, 
the imports of specie have far exceeded the exports. To 
swell the amount of our foreign indebtedness, the gentleman 
who represents the Bank of the United States has informed 
us of a loan of seven millions of dollars due from that Bank, 
I presume, to England ; and which loan becomes payable 
within the year. Admit the fact — but will the loan be 
paid ? I venture to say it will not be paid in reality, though 
it may be in form. It will be paid by a new loan in some 
shape or other. Loans of this character must be continu- 
ally falling due, but the superior interest which we can pay, 
and which induced the creation by Europe of the original 
loans, must operate to the continuance of such loans. They 
will always exist, and hence their falling due is only a pre- 
lude to their renewal. But if the gentleman shall say that 
the loan will be paid without the creation of a new and 
equivalent debt, the fault will be iiis own. The payment 
must be unnecessary. I have no doubt that the Bank 
which the gentleman represents, can alone, if it please, bor- 
row, and keep borrowed indefinitely, in Europe, a much 
larger sum than all the commercial balance which has been 
arrayed here to make us continue in our illegal position of 
suspended Banks. 

Another reason assigned for the expediency of our not 
designating a day of resumption, is that the resolves of the 
Convention can be but advisory, the Convention possessing 
no power to coerce the Banks to conform to our resolutions. 
This is a reason in favor of our designating a day of re- 
sumption. Were Banks compelled to obey our designation, 



THE SUSPENSION OF SPECIE PAYMENTS. 163 

we might well tremble at the responsibility which we were 
assuming, but to the extent that our resolves are not obli- 
gatory, our mistakes will not necessarily be fatal; and to 
the extent that we shall err in our recommendations, the 
Banks will be justified in disregarding our recommenda- 
tions. Besides, that we cannot coerce the Banks to con- 
form to our resolutions may have been some reason for our 
not assembling in Convention, but it can be no reason for 
withholding our advice now we are assembled. Let us 
then perform our duty manfully, and if we shall succeed in 
designating a period when Banks ought to resume pay- 
ments, let those bear the responsibility who shall think pro- 
per to disregard our designation. 

We are told also that the designation of a day by this 
Convention will excite expectations which if not realized 
will be disastrous. I admit the position ; but should we now 
adjourn without designating a day, we shall even now dis- 
appoint the expectations of the country. Let us therefore 
not create a certain disappointment, from the fear that our 
actions may produce a disappointment hereafter. 

In relation to the resolutions which have been offered by 
the gentleman of Massachusetts, and which decide against 
fixing a time for the resumption of specie payments, they 
appear to me a mere screen to cover the failure of the pre- 
sent Convention. They announce nothing but the most 
common-place good intentions to perform the most indefin- 
ite actions; and all through the instrumentality of an- 
other Convention to assemble in this city next April. That 
Convention is to be more extensive than the present. But 
what reasons exist for such an expectation ? Our failure 
will give ominous presage of the inutility of Conventions, 
and men will be restrained from attending another. 

The gentleman who represents the Bank of the United 
8 



154: THE SUSPENSION OF SPECIE PAYMENTS. 

States, has read to us the contract by which specie pay- 
ments were resumed in 1816. The result was accomplished 
by the concert of New- York, Philadelphia, and two or three 
other cities, all of whom are represented here. How this 
proves that the present Convention, w^hich represents 
eighteen States, is not general enough to resume specie 
payments, he failed to make me comprehend. 

But some adventitious circumstances have been stated 
which tend to prejudice a vote for the resumption of specie 
payments. The banks of New- York are openly accused 
of officiousness and indelicacy in calling this Convention. 
But where did this Convention originate ? In South Caro- 
lina. The President of a Bank who has filled the Chair of 
State in that Commonwealth, in a letter published by him- 
self, and directed to the President of the United States 
Bank,* and addressed in a strain of only too much devo- 
tion to the person addressed and to his institution, urged 
the propriety of a Convention. The public press every- 
where echoed the suggestion. The only difficulty appre- 
hended was to find some adequate persons sufficiently pa- 
triotic to assume the labor and responsibility of the initia- 
tory steps in the work thus happily suggested. The banks 
of the city of New- York, after waiting long and discover- 
ing reluctantly, that no other persons were moving, moved 
in it themselves. Shall they now be taunted with the act ; 
— told repeatedly, as they have been in this body, that the 
Convention is a New-York measure, called to subserve the 
peculiar interests and liabilities of New- York, and that the 
resumption of specie payments, is pressed indelicately and 
too pertinaciously ! The respectable committee of the city 
are entitled to anything but censure ; but since to censure 

* Its charter from Congress had expired, and it was now existing under a charter 
fjom Pennsylvania. 



THE SUSPENSION OF SPECIE PAYMENTS. 155 

them is the fashion, I also have a charge against them. 
Instead of too much pertinacity in sustaining the great meas- 
ure to which their call invites, I charge them with coming 
to this Convention prepared suthciently for neither offence 
nor defence. Except the venerable gentleman (Albert 
Gallatin), to eulogize whose wisdom, experience, and talents 
has been the preliminary topic of every speaker who has 
sought to defeat his recommendations — who among all the 
city delegation has spoken in this controversy ? Not one. 
The venerable gentleman is, I admit, a host within himself; 
and while his character needs not our voucher, forming as 
it does, a part of the history of our country, and while I am 
sensible that our praise or dispraise must at this late day be 
equally indifferent to him, 1 will not imitate in eulogy the 
speakers who oppose him ; I will show my reverence for 
his talents, wisdom, and experience by endeavoring to fix 
an early day for the rebumption of specie payments agree- 
ably to his recommendations. 

Nothinor also can be further from the fact than the iter- 
ated assertion that the Banks of New- York, feel any pecu- 
liar peril. The Legislature of New-York has, we admit, 
given her Banks a licence of suspension for no longer than 
some period in May ; but should the Banks continue sus- 
pended after that period, their situation will not be worse 
than that of the Banks of other States who taunt us with 
our position. Look at the Banks of Pennsylvania. When 
their suspension was sought to be placed under the protec- 
tion of a law, the Governor of their State published his re- 
fusal. The Banks, he said, should be kept under the con- 
stant terror of the sword of justice, which, suspended over 
their heads, was to fall on them suddenly, if they either 
called in their debts too fast for the convenience of the 
people, or called them in not fast enough for an early re- 



156 THE SUSPENSION OP SPECIE PAYMENTS. 

sumption of specie payments. Within this dangerous strait 
the Banlvs of Pennsylvania are now steering, and yet 
they assume that the efforts of New- York for an early re- 
sumption of specie, is dictated by the peculiar peril of the 
Banks of New- York. 

And what is the position of the Banks of Massachusetts? 
The Legislature of their State, we are complacently inform- 
ed, has not designated May as the termination of the period 
in which the suspension of specie shall be legalized. True ; 
but we know that the Banks of Massachusetts are now in 
the position which the Banks of JNew- York will occupy after 
next May : that is, they are now liable momentarily to a 
forfeiture of their charters, and exist at the mere suffer- 
ance of the community. 

New- York, we are told also, will listen to no compro- 
mise, and is too pertinacious of the single measure that she 
advocates. But the question admits of no middle ground. 
New- York will compromise as to the time of resumption. 
She desires March, bui, she will, as a compromise, agree to 
a later day ; but she cannot compromise by agreeing to 
designate no day. Instead of being a compromise, that will 
be a defeat of the object for which the Convention assem- 
bled. And permit me to say in conclusion, that should we 
adjourn without designating a day for the resumption of 
specie payments, we ought never to have assembled. The 
period of our meeting is full of interest, and many may 
deem it lull of meaning. A Congress is assembling in 
which topics are to be discussed of known interest to Banks. 
Our decision maj^ affect those discussions, and our decis- 
ion may be obnoxious to the suspicion of being intended to 
affect them ; and hence I heard with regret the remarks of 
some gentlemen, that we cannot resume payments till we 
learn first whether the sub-Treasury bill is to be enacted. 



THE SUSPENSION OF SPECIE PAYMENTS. 157 

To withhold our action till that question is decided, is to 
act on the question ourselves, and to act against it. 

The lessons of experience are, T trust, not to be lost on 
us. What destroyed the United States Bank ? Was it a 
belief that such an institution is useless ? No. It was de- 
stroyed in despite of its admitted great use to both Govern- 
ment and people. It was destroyed because the people 
suspected that it was endeavoring to coerce the Govern- 
ment into a renewal of its charter. Shall the Government 
conquer the Bank, or shall the Bank qonquer the Govern- 
ment ? was the issue which rallied the country and over- 
whelmed the Bank. I say not that the Bank was guilty of 
the charge against it ; but if it were innocent, the warning 
to us is stronger than if it were guilty. The people will 
correct the Government, if they believe that the Government 
is directly or indirectly acting injuriously on the country by 
means of acting injuriously on Banks; but should the peo- 
ple only suspect that Banks are prolonging the suspension 
of specie payments, and thereby unnecessarily embarrass- 
ing the country, to goad the people into dissatisfaction 
with the Government, on the sub -Treasury question, they 
will sustain the Government and spurn the Banks from the 
earth. 

We must therefore avoid, if possible, in our decision, not 
only all effect on Government, but we must avoid all ap- 
pearance of intending an effect. Nothing, however, can 
be more difficult. If we designate a day for the resump- 
tion of specie payments, persons may say that the designa- 
tion at this moment is intended to prevent the passage of 
the sub-Treasury bill ; and if we adjourn without designat- 
ing a day, we may be liable to the suspicion of intention- 
ally embarrassing the fiscal concerns of the nation, for the 
purpose, on the part of some of us, of forcing on the Gov- 



158 THE SUSPENSION- OF SPECIE PAYMENTS. 

ernment a National Bank, or for some equally sinister pur- 
pose. The dilemma is painful, and I am aware of only one 
way in which we can pass through it with safety, and that 
is to perform or duty. If our decision shall conform to our 
moral and legal obligations, we may trust that the admitted 
propriety of our decisions will protect us from misconstruc- 
tion ; but if, contrary to our moral and legal obligations, 
we adjourn without designating a day, the impropriety of 
our decision will lead to misconstruction, how pure soever 
may be our intentions. In this case, then, as in all others, 
the path of duty is the path of safety. And besides, noth- 
ing will be more difficult than to establish the probability 
of pure intentions, should we adjourn without designating 
a day. The position of Banks is beyond endurance morti- 
fying. The humility which turns one cheek when the 
other is smitten is nothing compared with the humility of 
Banks. Threatened, taunted, and despised for not com- 
plying with our obligations, we say we will not comply 
from deference to the interests of the people who thus 
threaten, taunt, and despise us. Can the people believe 
that Banks are thus disinterestedly encountering shame and 
peril ? You can judge ; but I am satisfied that should we 
even err in fixing a day, we shall err on the side of safety. 



PART II. 

OF THE STATE GOVERfNMENT 

CHAPTER I. 

THE CONSTITUTION. 



KEASONS FOK CALLING A CONVENTION TO EEVISE THE 
EXISTING CONSTITUTION.* 

While history records but little more than unceasing 
attempts to circumscribe the natural rights of man, and 
enlarge the privileges of rulers, we occasionally institute 
the opposite experiment, of how far every man may be 
left unrestricted in the pursuit of his own happiness, and 
how far the superiority of rulers may be wholesomely 
diminished. In about five months we are to pronounce 
whether another experiment of this nature shall be tried or 
not. The object is undeniably benevolent, and with the 
known good dispositions and sedate views of our citizens, 
we ought not to be too suspicious of evil, miser-like cling- 
ing to our present possessions, and from the mere possibili- 
ty of loss, refusing all attempts at further political acquisi- 
tions. The spirit of fair enterprise which leads us, step by 

* Published in 1845. 



160 REASONS FOR CALLING A CONVENTION 

step, to perfection in other sciences, may, if directed to 
government, lead to results equally beneficial. The good 
which may be elicited at every trial, will be a permanent 
acquisition to mankind in all times and places ; while the 
mistakes that may be committed will be corrected by our- 
selves as soon as they are felt. The experience, too, of all 
our States in such trials is full of encouiagement for the 
future, since every attempt has meliorated the condition of 
the people, for whose benefit it was instituted. 

Before any man can assume that our present Constitu- 
tion is incapable of improvement, he must believe that the 
congregated wisdom of the State can suggest nothing 
which is not already known to him ; this, too, in the face 
of defects in our judiciary, that oppress every suitor with 
*' the hope deferred, which maketh the heart sick ;" and in 
the face of social inequalities that proceed not from the 
differences of intellect, health, perseverance, and other in- 
evitable natural causes, but from a diiference of privileges 
accorded arbitrarily to some men and denied to others. If 
any citizen wishes to erect a saw-mill, he receives no 
guarantee that another person shall not erect a rival mill 
in its vicinity ; but when a man has obtained from the Le- 
gislature a charter for the construction of a railroad, say 
from Utica to Schenectady, he has acquired a monopoly of 
the route, for no person can erect a rival road without like 
legislative facilities ; and no legislative application for 
such rivalry would be successful in one application out of 
a thousand. The corporators of such special privileges 
are, therefore, about as secure of their monopoly as though 
the monopoly were an express grant ; hence their stocks 
sell in market at premiums varying from 20 to 30 percent, 
or more, while travellers, excluded from the benefit of 
rival enterprises, are helplessly subjected to virtually un- 



TO REVISE THE EXISTING CONSTITUTION. 161 

restrained rapacity ; and the result is seen in enormous 
railroad dividends. Monopolies of this character, directed 
to numerous pursuits, flood our State ; and so corrupting is 
the power to create such monopolies, and so eager is the 
instinct of gain to procure them, that as early as the year 
1811, Gov. Tompkins prorogued the Legislature, and sent 
the members home for a season, in the vain hope that the 
sight of their constituents would arrest a corrupt combina- 
tion to charter a bank. Gov. Clinton's messages to the 
Legislature are full of evidences that the same corrupting 
influence was active in his day. From his suggestions, 
against what is technically called legislative log-rolling, 
arose the rule that no bill should create or alter more than 
a single Corporation, lest the want of merit, which should 
preclude the enactment of the bills separately, might induce 
their respective advocates in the Legislature to club, and 
pass them all. And in our own time, if rumor lies not, the 
members of our Legislature, as they journey towards the 
Capitol to enter on their duties, are occasionally (when 
their services are needed to create some new privilege) 
surprised by the equivocal courtesy of receiving free rail- 
road tickets. Nor is the corrupting power to grant special 
privileges, and the corrupting consciousness that special 
privileges are obtained by favor and friendship, seen in 
only the dalliance of such appliances; who cannot see it in 
the meritorious laws that are annually rejected, when they 
happen to conflict with existing monopolies ; as, for in- 
stance, last winter, the railroad from Albany to New- 
York, and from Utica to Binghamton ? — and who cannot 
see it also in the laws that are annually passed, when they 
happen to benefit political favorites ; as, for instance, the 
renewal, last winter, of two bank charters, after years of 
denial to kindred applications ? and vy^hat resisted, till the 

8* 



162 EEASONS FOR CALLING A CONVENTION 

people were weary of asking for it, the mere privilege of 
sending to and from Albany, by railroad, the produce and 
merchandise which the frozen canal cannot conve}^ and 
which, when transmitted by railroad, were to pay canal 
tolls ? Let the tariff answer, which, last winter, the rail- 
roads established for freight, when they were at length 
compelled (not being quite ready to accept this additional 
branch of lucre) to accede to the wants of the country ; 
but acceded by freight charges so great as " to keep the 
word of promise to our ears only." 

In the year 1821, when our present Constitution was 
created, the evil of special legislation was sought to be 
corrected by the expedient of a two-third vote. Experience 
shows that this has increased the facility of obtaining char- 
ters, legislators being now, by a spirit of concession, in- 
duced to help make up a two-third vote, when, had appli- 
cations depended on the vote of a mere majority, they 
would have exercised on every question, their personal 
convictions of duty. Nor, in truth, is the remedy at all 
adapted to the disease. The evil to be remedied is the 
creation of monopolies, while obstacles in the way of their 
creation augment the monopoly when granted, just in pro- 
portion as the obstacles prevent the creation of rival insti- 
tutions. The New- York Life Insurance and Trust Com- 
pany illustrates this principle. It was chartered in 1830, 
unlimited in duration, with a capital of a million of dollars ; 
and it is, moreover, a close corporation, the directors being 
self-appointed, not elective. The magnitude and novelty 
of these and its other powers conform well to the novelty 
of the combination of great names that united in procuring 
the grant. Subsequent Legislatures have constantly re- 
fused to create any similar institution, deterred therefrom 
by the peculiarity of its powers ; or, more likely, (so debased 



TO KEVISE THE EXISTING CONSTITUTION. 163 

is the character of all special legislation, and ours is among 
the most debased,) because no similar institution has been 
sought by names equally influential ; consequently the 
Company has long enjoyed an unmolested monopoly of its 
peculiar functions, and its stock brings more than 60 per 
cent, advance on the money invested, besides paying semi- 
annually great dividends to its stockholders, and rich sala- 
ries to its officers. And not long since, after suffering in 
fraud a loss about equal to a quarter of its whole capital, 
the loss constituted only a diminution of its surplus profits. 
If, then, special privileges are aggravated in their inveter- 
acy by all restraints on their creation, short of a total 
prohibition, what ought to be our remedy, desiring, as we 
do, equality of privileges among all our citizens ? It con- 
sists not in making stockholders personally liable for the 
debts of their respective Corporations ; for, while this may 
render such monopolies less desirable property than at 
present, it still leaves us cursed with unequal legal facilities 
in the pursuit of wealth. Only one remedy seems practi- 
cable. The Legislature should be prohibited from granting 
any special privilepjes.* If the agency of corporate com 
bination is desirable in the construction of rail-roads, insu- 
rance companies, benevolent institutions, factories, or any 
other object, the act should be general ; like the existing 
laws incorporating churches, public libraries, free banks, 
and some manufactories ; so that whoever wishes may ob- 
tain the same powers. Privileges that are improper for all 
should be granted to none ; and what are within the reach 
of all, will cease from being invidious. If a rail-road route 
shall then be deemed capable of sustaining two establish- 
ments, an opposition will be produced, and the community 

* This prohibition was incorporated in the new Constitution, but it is essentially 
evaded. 



164: BEASONS FOR CALLING A CONVENTION 

will enjoy the benefit of competition ; as now, when rival 
mills are erected on the same stream, or rival stage coaches 
on the same turnpike. Our Legislature, relieved from the 
corrupting power of granting special privileges, will be dis- 
burdened of more than half the business which absorbs 
its time, while rail-road travel, relieved from the palsy of 
exclusiveness, will transport us in all directions at half the 
present charge, and perhaps at twice the speed. When 
steamboats on the Hudson were a legislative monopoly, the 
fare was seven dollars, and the trip occupied thirty hours; 
while now the fare is only fifty cents, and the time of travel 
ten hours. We wonder at the past generation for having 
supported such a burthen, while still believing that they lived 
under a government of equal laws ; and doubtless our suc- 
cessors will contemplate with surprise the special privi- 
leges that we tolerate. In truth, with our seventy years' 
apprenticeship to liberty, the time has been too short to 
eradicate the exclusive legislation of preceding ages. Only 
seven years have elapsed since men could pursue the busi- 
ness of auctioneering without a commission from the 
Executive, in whose hands such licenses were reserved to 
reward favorites ; and they often made a sinecure of their 
commission by selling the use of them. Till within a year, 
no man, however gifted, could lawfully practise medicine 
without a special authorization; and even now such a 
practitioner is subjected, for certain offences, to penalties 
which are not imposed on licensed physicians, who should 
be equally guilty. Scarcely two years have elapsed since 
all our agricultural products, and nearly all our raw pro- 
ductions, that were designed for exportation, were compul- 
sorily subjected to a swarm of petty monopolists, weighers, 
inspectors, and measurers, armed with a mass of legislative 
fees and penalties, expressed in full forty-nine pages of our 



TO REVISE THE EXISTING CONSTITUTIOISr. 165 

Revised Statutes. The imposition is happily so far miti- 
gated, that the buyer and seller are not compelled to sub- 
ject their property to the inspectors, weighers, and meas- 
urers ; though certain officers only can, even as yet, per- 
form these mechanical duties when such services are 
desired. Our towns and villages also have their exclusive 
weighers, measurers, and inspectors. In Albany, for in- 
stance, one man alone can measure stone for hire, under a 
penalty of ten dollars for every infringement of his mono- 
poly. In a Government like ours, something is due to the 
principle of liberty ; for, as we accustom ourselves to cherish 
its minute ramifications, the habit will be strengthened of 
preserving its more important ministrations. Many per- 
sons suppose that the whole system is erroneous, which 
superadds to the instinct of self-interest legal regulations 
like the foregoing.* Men are probably as seldom cheated 
' now, in the sale and purchase of produce, as when they 
were compelled to pay inspectors and weighers. Men are 
also auctioneers without commissions, and physicians with- 
out diplomas, and no evil results from the liberty ; though 
the latter concession to equal rights was gained, petty as it 
is, only after years of struggle, and the disregard of hosts 
of imaginary spectres. Possibly, also, could every man 
who pleases, (unlicensed except by his own will,) practise 
law, peddle goods, and even sell rum, or keep a tavern, 
no evil would result, despite the fears of the interested, and 
the shrieks of coercively-disposed philanthropists. 

Improvements have been suggested also in our civil 
organization. Each town is a little Republic, whose powers 
have been steadily enlarged, till it elects its own justices, 
and each county its own sheriff and clerks. A disposition 
seems general, to extend still further both town and county 

* These evils also the new Constitution abolished. 



166 EEASONS FOR CALLING A CONYENTION 

agencies, to the Legislative and Executive wants of their 
respective localities,* the belief seeming daily to increase 
that the people are the safest repositories of power — having 
no sinister objects to advance, no sons to make clerks of 
courts, and no brothers to make registers in Chancery. 
Should each town and county legislate for itself in what 
concerns its local interests, and the State confine its legis- 
lation to only what effects the interest of all, our State 
Government would assimilate to that of the United States ; 
our towns and counties occupying somewhat the same 
relation to the General Legislature as the States occupy to 
Congress. Possibly, also, our Assembly may be improved 
by making its members no longer the representatives of 
counties, but of election districts,! into which each county 
may be separated, so that every member will be known 
personally to all his constituents, and being dependent on 
them for his political consequence, represent them more 
truly than when his elevation depends, as often at present, 
on tlie intrigue of a party tactician, who expects in return 
some special subserviency to his personal ambition. 

But, finally, were we disposed to doubt the capacity of 
the people to revise our Constitution, we possess no shield 
to the danger, except the wisdom of the same people in a 
negative of the proposed Convention ; and hence arises a 
dilemma, which seems conclusive in favor of the measure ; 
for if the people negative a Convention, from mere possi- 
bility of an injurious result of its deliberations, the nega- 
tive will prove that they might have been safely trusted to 
pass a verdict upon the results, after the Convention had 
adopted them. And the negative will prove further, that 
we, "like the eye of childhood which fears a painted devil," 

* These improvements were partially adopted, 
t This was adopted in the new Constitution. 



TO REVISE THE EXISTING CONSTITUTION. 167 

needlessly lost the social improvements which possibly a 
Convention might have originated, composed as it must be 
of delegates known to the people for sagacity, and con- 
vened to deliberate expressly on existing evils and prospec- 
tive benefits. The converse also of the above argument 
will not impair its cogency ; for, admit that a sanction of 
the Convention by the people will not, like a negative vote, 
prove that the State is safe from all injurious amendments, 
how is this admission to help us ? The Legislature has 
placed us in the hands of the people, and we cannot escape 
from the consequences ; or rather, the Legislature has left 
us where God has placed u>, for God, in giving the major- 
ity of physical strength to the numerical majority of men, 
has placed the smaller number at the disposal of the 
greater ; and when this standard of natural power, which 
we have made the standard also of political power, shall 
prove itself to be an unsafe conservative of moral rights 
and intellectual propriety, it will prove likewise, that our 
theory of government is wrong, our Republican institutions 
but a pleasing dream, and that, like the races of men who 
have preceded us, we must choose whether we will give up 
our equality of rights or our social well-being. And, per- 
haps, no period for such an experiment is more favorable 
than the present ; for we had better make it in this our day 
of national youth and consequent virtue, when the equality 
of rights we possess (and which we would fain make entire 
in a new Constitution) is not vastly different from the 
equality of condition that we enjoy by fortune, than wait 
till time shall have matured in us the vices of a dense po- 
pulation, and divided it into the unwholesome extremes of 
great poverty and great wealth, great learning and great 
ignorance. And that these dangerous extremes may be 
delayed, or happily never come, let us, as far as Providence 



168 THE DELEGATES WHICH SHOULD BE SELECTED 

will permit, eradicate their sources, b}^ prohibiting all spe- 
cial privileges, which only make the rich richer, and, by 
removing all special disabilities, that only make the poor 
poorer, the debased baser; and, forgetting for a moment all 
personal considerations, seize the present opportunity, and 
make our New- York, which we fondly call the Empire 
State, a model Eepublic. 



THE DELEGATES WHICH SHOULD BE SELECTED TO EOEM A 
STATE CONSTITUTION.* 

The State Convention having been overwhelmingly 
adopted, the question which most demands present atten- 
tion is, what reforms are desirable, and how the attainment 
of them can be best secured ; for w^e must not conceal from 
ourselves that what the people are to gain, somebody is to 
lose ; and the losers will resist the loss with an energy to 
be feared, because its motive will be disguised. The con- 
scious vulnerability of existing chartered monopolies makes 
an election to the legislature, of both their known and 
secret beneficiaries, an object which the interested usu- 
ally pursue with success ; and the same principle, aug- 
mented by a new danger, will crowd such persons into the 
Convention, where they will be but too willing to favor any 
project that will leave them in possession of special privil- 
eges, at the expense of some change in the mode by which 
the privileges are to be perpetuated. The danger from this 
source is peculiarly great, because public attention has been 
directed more to a reform of the terms on which special 
privileges are granted than to a discontinuance of all such 

♦Published in 1845. 



TO FORM A STATE CONSTITUTION". 169 

privileges. But equality is our boast, and shall we not 
practice it? It is our right, and shall we not perfect it? 
Liberty is enjoyed in England, and many other countries, 
as fully as we enjoy it. We excel all nations in only 
equality of privileges ; and the great question for the Con- 
vention to decide is whether all privileges granted by law 
to any one association of men shall not be common to 
every other set of men who choose to associate and possess 
them. 

Another class of reforms, against which we ought to ap- 
prehend danger, are those that increase the political powers 
of the people ; as, for instance, tha^ all offices shall be 
elective ; that the State shall be divided into single repre- 
sentative districts ; and that the right to call Conventions 
shall never be again abandoned to the Legislature, but re- 
tained by the people, as a practical guarantee of their 
sovereignty. These argumentations of the popular influ- 
ence will ratably diminish the influence of partisan leaders, 
who now control all nominations for elective offices, and 
dictate all executive appointments ; and who will therefore 
employ every accustomed intrigue, and arouse every possi- 
ble prejudice, to secure seats in the Convention for persons 
friendly to the control and dictation that are sought to be 
abrogated. 

Alarming as are the foregoing dangers, lest the lamb 
should be delivered to the care of the wolf, no preventive 
exists but to obtain from the people decidedly- expressed 
feelings in favor of the desired reforms ; for our managing 
politicians of every creed will rarely outrage unequivocal ex- 
pressions of the public will. We shall obtain an amended 
judiciary, and of equal value, whoever may be chosen as 
delegates ; but the reforms to which the. preceding obser- 
vations refer, and kindred measures, are favored by only a 



170 STATE DEBT AND TAX LIABILITY. 

portion of our citizens. To obtain these reforms the Con- 
vention was principally advocated ; and to prevent their 
obtainment, the Convention was mainly opposed. To de- 
liver it up now to those who thus opposed it, would be 
equivalent to the old adage of yielding a pail full of milk, 
and then upsetting it. We are not forced to adopt the 
recommendations of the Convention ; and hence we need 
not fear should the most radical reformers control it. A 
Convention which will not submit reforms to the option of 
the people, is more to be deplored than a Convention 
which will submit too much; for the people possess the 
power to reject, but not to add. When the Legislature 
submits any subject to a committee, a majority thereof is 
always selected from persons who favor the referred sub- 
ject, because an unfriendly majority would render a refer- 
ence nugatory ; so we may as well have voted against a 
Convention, as vote for delegates who are hostile to 
changes, and especially to those which the Convention Avas 
called to effect. 



STATE DEBT AND TAX LIABILITY. 

That the new Constitution should restrain the Legisla 
ture, in the creation of debt and the imposition of taxes, 
was originally called the People's Kesolution, to character- 
ize its alleged importance to the political influence and 
pecuniary security of the people. When a city wishes to 
improve its streets, the persons at whose expense, and for 
whose ostensible benefit, the improvement is to be made, 
are always consulted preliminarily, and their decision is 
equitably the only justification for the expenditure. So 



STATE DEBT A^D TAX LIABILITY. 171 

when the Croton River was to be introduced into the City 
,of New- York, the Legislature refused the necessary power, 
unless the people would declare by their personal votes that 
they were willing to incur the cost. And still more re- 
cently, when Albany desired to borrow money for the 
completion of a railroad, the inhabitants were permitted 
to say whether they would purchase the benefit at the 
hazard of the proposed debt. The principle of the People's 
Resolution is, therefore, not new, except in its application 
to the State Legislature, whose exemption can hardly be 
justified, (itself being judge, as in the above examples,) but 
only on the bad rule that might makes right. And to 
show still further the propriety of subjecting the Legisla- 
ture to the same rule to which it has spontaneously sub- 
jected subordinate representative bodies, we must remem- 
ber that the restriction is to apply only to expenditures for 
supposed lucrative results, as the creation and completion 
of canals, and not to such as are essential to the preserva- 
tion of public order, the support of justice, the suppression 
of insurrection, and the defeat of invasion. These objects 
being necessarily implied in the creation of a State Gov- 
ernment, the Legislature possesses in relation to them a 
power as solemn as the people can confer. Even in the 
construction and completion of canals, no desire is mani- 
fested to subject their progress to the vote of the people, 
when the Legislature possesses resources for such objects, 
without taxation or debt ; because all money possessed by 
the Government being a result of powers delegated by the 
people, we may properly infer that the disposal of the 
money at the discretion of the Legislature, was included in 
the delegated powers. 

Nor is the people's direct sanction to the creation of a 
debt defensible, on abstract principles of justice only to 



172 STATE DEBT AND TAX LIABILITY. 

themselves. We all know that taxes are odious, and that 
legislators often shrink from the responsibility of imposing 
them, even to fulfill existing obligations ; and that when im- 
posed, they cannot be collected against any general repug- 
nance of the tax-payers. Ought we not, therefore, in jus- 
tice to public creditors and our national honor, to make 
our State promises as personal as possible on the citizens 
individually, that our representatives may be strengthened 
in the performance of duty when taxes are indispensable, 
and that the people may view them as a debt personally 
contracted ? Besides, who has not seen how recklessly 
debts are created, when the person contracting is a mere 
agent of the substantial debtor ? Hence, how prudent is the 
requirement that a debt, which is to be a charge on the 
whole State, should require a sanction not limited to our 
representatives, who may possess political and personal 
motives peculiarly their own, but should require the aggre- 
gate sanction of all interests — of the poor, to whom a dollar 
may be important, as well as of the rich, to whom every 
tax may be unimportant ; of the neutral in politics, as well 
as the partisan, to whom the favor of an interested locality 
is better than money. 

But another, and perhaps better, expediency for the 
measure, is the increased personal influence with which it 
will invest every citizen,— and the intelligence of a people 
expands uniformly with their privileges. On this principle 
the trial by jury is, in none of its aspects, so beneficial as in 
its intellectual and moral effects on the people who are 
liable to become jurors. In France, where the institution 
is recent, the fitness for jury duties, of any promiscuous 
number of persons, contrasts disadvantageously with the 
fitness of ours, in about the proportion of the relative dura- 
tion of the institution in the two countries. In Eussia, the 



STATE DEBT AND TAX LIABILITY. 173 

agriculturalists are as much excluded from all governmental 
agencies as our Southern slaves ; and the intelligence 
therein of the two classes is ratably equal. But the influ- 
ence of privileges is most strikingly apparent in the com- 
mon eligibility to office of all our citizens. Our public 
offices are filled from all classes of our people, and with no 
very critical regard to the present fitness of the occupants. 
A man without any legal education is made a justice, and 
with very little, a judge ; and without any special political 
training, finds himself suddenly a legislator, governor, 
ambassador, a head of department, (naval, perhaps, without 
ever having been on ship-board,) or even a President ; still 
such persons soon grow to their stations, and fill them with 
as much propriety as though they had expected them 
always, and been educated in the expectation. The more, 
therefore, we cast upon all our citizens the responsibity of 
regulatmg our State, the more will the lowest citizen be- 
come elevated, and the less will the accidentally exalted 
become unwholesomely peculiar ; and what is still better, 
the more will intellect and moral self-respect become 
general. Nor is the intellectual improvement of our 
masses a mere abstract benevolence. We have given to 
the majority of numbers the disposal of life, and all its 
cherished incidents ; hence each of us is interested in the 
intelligence and virtue of all. Nor need we desire a better 
guarantee than we possess for our personal rights : for 
among us intelligence is so equally diffused that every 
numerical majority of our citizens, however temporarily 
marshalled under contending political heads, will be sure 
to include the majority of knowledge. So true is this in 
practice, that nearly every man will admit, in all our politi- 
cal contests, circumstances eventually demonstrate that the 
decision of the majority is right. The demagogue influ- 



174 STATE DEBT AND TAX LIABILITY. 

ence of one party is neutralized by the demagogue influ- 
ence of its opposing party ; while every important question 
is eventually decided by the multitude of voters, whose par- 
tisan ties are too feeble to pervert their judgment or sub- 
vert their patriotism. This equality of knowledge among 
our citizens adds immeasurably to the permanency of our 
institutions, which otherwise would have long since fallen 
a victim to the rage of some disappointed minority, willing, 
as they have been occasionally, to march in arms to Wash- 
ington,* and assume the Government by force, had not the 
opposing majority been an over-match in knowledge, as 
well as in numbers, and thus making every decision of our 
ballot-boxes the decision of an inexorable destiny. 

If, then, the numerical majority of our citizens is armed 
with not merely a majority of muscular strength, (as they 
must be by nature,) but also with a majority of knowledge, 
to give due efficiency to their physical preponderance, the 
conclusion is irresistible, that if they desire, in the matter 
of debts and taxes, a personal control over our Legislature, 
no natural right exists in the minority to interpose a pre- 
vention ; and when our Constitution, by its two-third re- 
quirement, performs artificially for the minorty what 
nature and reason equally refuse to perform for them, the 
Constitution errs in principle, and the error is alone good 
cause for a Convention, that the error may be corrected. 

The merits of the proposed debt-restraining amendment 
is a question wholly different from the right of the people 
to demand and obtain it. Their desire alone is a sufficient 
warrant for it, irrespective of its merits. To say, however, 
nothing of its merits, an undue disfavor may attach to the 
restraint, from a supposition that its adoption is equivalent 
to a perpetual abandonment of our suspended public im- 

* This was threatened during the United States Bank Controversy. 



STATE DEBT AND TAX LIABILITY. 175 

provements. This consequence can ensue only on the 
assumption that the pubUc works require, in their comple- 
tion, loans which the people will not sanction. Such an 
assumption may prove to be erroneous, not only as re- 
spects the decision of the people, should loans be necessary, 
but also as respects the necessity for loans ; but, if we con- 
cede all assumptions, who will say that the canals ought to be 
completed on loans, if a majority of the people are opposed 
to such a procedure ? Indeed, those who wish the com- 
pletion of our public works (and the writer is one of the 
number) ought to be glad that the fate of these improve- 
ments is to be contingently removed from the representa- 
tives of the people, who may misconceive the public will, 
to the people personally, who cannot misconceive; and on 
every such appeal the consciousness will be general that 
the decision is right; for with us the doctrine that the 
king can do no wrong is strictly applicable to the people. 
Their decision cannot be wrong, for it virtually constitutes 
right. 

But, finally, whether the Legislature shall continue to be 
endued with power to indefinitely contract debts, is only 
one phase of the more comprehensive question of whether 
our amended Constitution shall, like the present, confer on 
the Legislature unlimited legislation ; or whether, like the 
Constitution of the United States, it shall confer only cer 
tain circumscribed topics of legislation', reserving to the 
people themselves all powers not granted. So completely, 
under the present Constitution, are the people divested of 
all means of legal action, except through the medium of 
their Senate and Assembly, that if last winter our Legisla- 
ture had, like the Legislature of Khode Island, refused to 
authorize a Convention, our citizens, like those of Rhode 
Island, might have reverted for redress to their natural 



176 ARISTOCRACY AND NATIVISM. 

rights ; but they would have possessed no constitutional 
means of effecting their wishes. Clearly then, in surren- 
dering to their representatives all power, the people have 
reserved to themselves too little. But what powers soever 
the people may choose to reclaim, the Convention in its 
wisdom must decide ; but should they desire no more than 
to be consulted whether they will forego public improve- 
ment or be taxed U'> procure them, the reservation is only 
what each man expects when his wife wants to benefit him 
by painting his house, or his neighbors want to benefit his 
children by a tax to increase the district library. The cases 
seem different, because in our domestic expenditures we 
are accustomed to a liberty of choice, and therefore prize 
it, while in our State expenditures we have never enjoyed 
a voice, and therefore feel not its value; we may even re- 
ject it when offered, as a bird enured to his cage will refuse 
to fly when the door is accidentally (as in our case) opened 
for the recovery of his lost freedom.* 



AEISTOCRACY AND NATIYISM. 

An impression has pervaded society in all ages, that the 
rich require some guarantees against the encroachments of 
the poor, who are assumed to possess an appetite for prop- 
erty in proportion to their lack of it, and with an instinct 
like that of ravening wolves, needing legal chains, bars, 
and bolts to restrain them from seizing by violence what is 
denied them by fortune. The Constitution and laws of 
every people bear sad evidence of this belief; and to it, 
rather than to any absence of humanity, we may attribute 
the property qualifications, which even our Constitution (so 

* The restriction was in the new Constitution. 



AKISTOCEACY AND NATIVISM. » 177 

slow is the progress of liberal principles) yet requires in 
senators and governors, but which at our next election we 
shall be permitted to expunge forever. Providence has not, 
however, performed its task so lamely in the structure of 
man as to render oppression a necessary bond of society ; 
on the contrary, the exercise of benevolence is made not 
merely our duty, but our interest — the poor being endued 
with a humility (springing spontaneously from their necessi- 
ties) that requires to be counteracted by incitements rather 
than increased by legal depression, would we call into full 
activity, for the general benefit, all the powers the poor 
possess. Such is the invariable course of Provideince. 
Where the wind cannot be attempered to the shorn lamb, 
(as it cannot be in the case of the poor,) the lamb is attem- 
pered to the wind ; or, as the proverb expt'esses the same 
idea, every back is shaped to bear its own burden. So 
well known is the humility of the poor, that to treat them 
with ordinary courtesy is stigmatized as courting them ; 
and so often is such conduct practised for sinister purposes, 
that we can hardly avoid viewing it suspiciously, as the 
ladder by which ambition is seeking to mount into power. 

Notwithstanding this rooted impression, that property 
needs special protection, history furnishes no instance of an 
organized attempt by the poor to oppress the rich ; and 
when we require an example thereof we usually resort to 
fiction, and adduce the Jack Cade of Shakspeare. The 
anti-rentism which, unfortunately, is afflicting a portion of 
our State, may be thought an example of the aggressive 
spirit in question ; but so habitual with us is respect for 
law, even when it chances to be oppressive, that we may 
well suspect some great provocation as the origin of anti- 
rent combinations. The highest authority proclaims that 
the tree shall be known by its fruit ; bad indeed, therefore, 

9 



178 i^ElSTOCEACY AND NATIVISM. 

must be the tenure that in our country 5^ields such fruit. 
But while we have no concern with this question, are we 
sure in our indignation against the ungentlemanly mode of 
cheating practised by anti-renters, that their hard-fisted re- 
sistance of exactions, however exorbitant, (and against 
which, for themselves and their posterity for ever, they are 
led to expect neither judicial nor legislative redress,) 
involves so total a moral depravity as to prove that the 
poor cannot be trusted with an equality of privileges? 
The character of actions must be sought in the motive; 
and, thus estimated, are not men who are without legal re- 
dress against oppression some little excusable for attempt- 
ing illegal redress? 

If we examine other causes of alleged encroachments by 
the poor upon the rich, we shall find usually that they are 
only attempts made peaceably to reduce legal inequalities. 
The time is, however, arrived with us when we may rea- 
sonably hope to see inscribed in full on our new Constitu- 
tion, that property shall possess no special privileges, and 
the want of it shall constitute no disqualification for any 
public ofiice of honor or emolument, of trust or confidence. 
Then will be abolished the more than absurd (for it is use- 
less, and therefore wicked) stigma on the poor, which is 
found in our present jury system. To be either a grand or 
petit juror, the law requires that a man must possess " a fair 
character, sound judgment, be well informed, and of ap- 
proved integrity." If these qualities should be found asso- 
ciated with poverty, one might reasonably hope that even 
policy would teach us to reward the conjunction, to look 
approvingly on the tree that yields good fruit, despite its 
bleak exposure. But not thus argue our laws ; for though 
jurymen are not drawn casually from the mass of our citi- 
zens, but are selected, for their intellectual and moral 



ARISTOCRACY AND NATIVISM. 179 

fitness, out of the inhabitants of every town, by its clerk, 
supervisor, and assessors ; or out of the body of the whole 
county, by the supervisors thereof — all persons not possess- 
ing a given amount of property are excluded from the 
honor (such it is, though burthehsome) of performing jury 
functions ; and what is worse, the poor, who, as a class, 
need instruction more than any other, are thus excluded 
from obtaining, b}^ the easy access of the ear, the legal 
knowledge, whose obtainment is inseparable from the per- 
formance of jury duties, and one of the chief advantages of 
the institution. 

Our conduct towards the poor, in withholding from them 
honorary trusts, contrasts disadvantageously with our con- 
duct toward them in imposing burdens. Our Bill of Rights 
guards the rich man's possessions by an interdict against 
taking his property for public uses without due compensa- 
tion ; but the poor man's labor, which constitutes liis only 
wealth, receives no such guarantee ; and, consequently, 
knowing that we may at some indefinite time need his ser- 
vice to protect our wealth, we exact from him, without 
compensation, that be shall not merely keep himself armed 
and equipped, but that he shall set aside whole days in every 
year to make himself expert in military duties. If we en- 
deavor to soften this injustice by claiming that militia 
service is a general tax, levied alike on rich and poor, we 
only shift the injustice, without removing it ; for on what 
equitable principle should the tax of a poor man be equal, 
as in this case, to the tax of the richest? And especially 
is the grievance of the poor enhanced when necessity re- 
quires a promiscuous draft from the militia ranks to quell 
domestic violence. True, in such a contingency, we may, 
after much legislative entreaty, dole out, as recently, a pe- 
cuniary pittance for their service ; but have the poor no 



180 AillSTOCRACy AND NATIVISM. 

reason to complain that remuneration for their property 
(the energy of their bones and muscle) is less especially 
secured to them than the cattle and grounds of a rich man 
are secured to him. 

Kindred to the vulgar error, that the poor are hostile to 
the rich, is the opinion that adopted citizens are hostile to 
natives, and hence not to be entrusted in important politi- 
cal offices ; this too, in opposition to the experienced faith- 
fulness of such citizens in all our wars and dangers ; in 
opposition, also, to the clearest impulses of human nature, 
which forbid that a man who expatriates himself, with all 
his substance, should sacrifice the country he has volunta- 
rily chosen, for the country he has voluntarily forsaken. Still, 
our Constitution adopts the error, and, to give it efficacy, 
curtails the freedom of native citizens, by prohibiting them 
from electing to the office of Governor an adopted citi- 
zen.* The effect of the prohibition, practically, on the 
liberty of the people is small ; for with all the prejudices 
on the subject, that exist but too spontaneously, the power 
to elect an adopted citizen would rarely, if ever, be exer- 
cised ; and this only makes our prohibition less excusable. 
Like the red cap which the Greeks were, till lately, com- 
pelled to wear when they sojourned in Turkey, the only 
effect of an exclusion is to gratuitously degrade, and there- 
fore to debase, those whom by every principle of policy 
we ought to elevate ; for if foreigners are worth receiving 
as citizens, the better citizens we can make them the 
greater is our gain. Who, that sees the meliorating influ- 
ence of our institutions on the rude and rough people (gro- 
tesque often in their dress and language) who arrive upon 
our shores, and scatter themselves over our country, with 
their wives and little ones, would remove from their new- 
born hopes one vision of future bliss ? Who would pro- 

* The new Constitution remedied this. 



ARISTOCRACY AND NATIVISM. 181 

nounce on these weary pilgrims, and on the little ones still 
clinging to the mother's breast, the perpetual doom of con- 
stitutional exclusion fronra any honor they may hereafter 
fit themselves to receive at the hands of an intelligent 
people, v^illing to confer it were they not forbidden ? This 
error in our political system the proposed Convention may 
remove ; and no time for such a measure is so fitting as the 
present, when we have just escaped from the sudden effer- 
vescence of a malignant spirit of nativism, that has sought 
still further to exasperate the prejudices of nationality, and 
to make adopted citizens a degraded caste, even to the 
withholding from them the right of worshipping the Creator 
in the mode dictated by their consciences. Could such 
counsels unhappily prevail, our country, instead of extend- 
ing from the Atlantic to the Pacific, and being then too 
small for the crowds that are teeming into life among us 
faster than any census can keep pace with them, would 
shrink into some narrow strip, which, like an old man's 
garment, would soon become "a world too wide for his 
shrunken limbs." 

Finally, we have tried long enough to benefit the public 
by granting special privileges to a select few : let us try 
whether the benefits will not be greater by making the 
privileges common to all. We have tried long enough to 
benefit foreigners by charitable societies, to attend to them 
when sick, and bury them when dead : let us eradicate 
the prejudices that make them perpetually inferior to na- 
tives, and perhaps they w\\\ pay their own doctors, and find 
a funeral without charity. We have tried long enough to 
benefit the poor by giving them soup in winter, and peni- 
tentiaries at all seasons : let us give them the legal privileges 
of the rich, and haply they will cook their own soup, and 
enjoy better incentives to worthy conduct than the fear of 
penitentiaries. 



182 MUNICIPAL CORPORATIONS. 



MUNICIPAL COKPOIUTIONS. 

Our Constitution permits the infliction of special burdens, 
as well as the grant of special privileges. What would 
farmers think, should every man be compelled to Macadam- 
ize the road in front of his farm, or even to repair it in an 
ordinary way, except by a ratable contribution with all 
the other inhabitants of his road district ? Still, in cities, 
persons whose lands lie along any street are compellable by 
the city authorities to pave and flag it for the use of the 
public. And these exactions are often less disastrous to 
land owners than requirements to fill up low streets, dig 
down high ones, drain wet ones, and open new streets ; 
hence, in perhaps every city, hundreds of acres (especially 
of suburbs) remain with the owners at the suff'erance of 
the local corporation, who can compel expenditures on the 
land that will induce its abandonment ; while in some 
cities the option of abandonment will not avert liabilities 
which, in known cases, have deprived the owner of not the 
assessed property merely, but of all his possessions. Such 
extremes are of course not frequent; but so inherently 
vicious is the authority in question, that a member of al- 
most any municipal corporation will display great resist- 
ance of temptation if he can pass through his civic year 
without sanctioning some wrong that would merit a peni- 
tentiary punishment if practised without the sanction of 
law. Even in Utica, of which the writer would speak 
kindly, he has purchased property in fee for a much less 
sum than the seller paid on it, many years previously, in 
assessments for grading and extending the street on which 
the property was situated. But, as respects Utica, the 
writer, to avoid every suspicion of personality, excludes her 



MUNICIPAL CORPORATIONS. 183 

from all the preceding and following remarks, except to the 
extent only in which they refer to her by name. 

If paving, flagging, &c., concern 'those alone who own 
adjacent land, with them alone should rest the option of 
paving or continuing unpaved ; but if the paving concerns 
the whole city (and on no other principle can a city govern- 
ment claim authority over the question), on the property 
of the city at large should rest ratably the expense of the 
improvement. Any different proceeding exhibits the ano- 
maly of power in one set of men. to decree improvements 
which another set are to pay for ; since experience shows 
that costly improvements are seldom ordered when the real 
estate that is to be burdened with the expenses is owned 
by the members of the corporation who decree the im- 
provement. They are more usually in the position of the 
lawgivers of whom 1800 years ago was said reproachfully : 
" Ye lade men with burdens grievous to be borne, and ye 
yourselves touch not the burdens with one of your fingers.'"' 
To thus ward off onerous improvements from one's ow^n 
real estate constitutes one of the benefits which makes a 
seat desirable in a city's councils ; while another benefit 
consists in the ability to cause improvements to be made at 
the expense of others that will benefit some proximate 
property of one's own. So naturally corrupting are pow- 
ers which permit such results, that a person well ac- 
quainted with local interests can usually foresee, after 
every municipal election, where costly improvements will 
be ordered during the incoming civic year, and especially 
where costly improvements will be forborne, except such 
as are to be made at the common expense ; and so demor- 
alizing of public sentiment is such legalized privateering on 
private property, that when an officer is expert in the prac- 
tice of it, he is deemed by many only a shrewd man of en- 
viiible tact and thriftiness. 



184 MUNICIPAL CORPORATIONS. 

Nor are the foregoing the only temptations to evil. The 
system permits discriminations, which are sometimes used 
to revenge personal wrongs, sometimes to punish general 
unpopularity, and sonietimes to deplete over-rich or absen- 
tee land^holders; hence, nothing is more common than the 
most abject petitions, private and public, direct and indi- 
rect, (through influential friends,) to avert meditated im- 
provements, which, in contemplation of law, are to benefit 
the remonstrants, and who, by virtue of such contemplation, 
are to pay the expense. And, still worse, nearly every 
corporation is surrounded by a multitude of retainers, who 
live by performing the labor and furnishing materials for 
coerced improvements. Like camp followers, they are 
ready to rifle the slain and wounded whether the fallen 
be friends or foes ; and, being usually the belligerents most 
relied on for success at elections, every existing officer who 
is ambitious of a re-election propitiates them by his zeal in 
supplying them with spoils; and hence his chance of con- 
tinuance in office is in an inverse proportion to the regard 
he exhibits for economy and resistance of expenditures. 
And nearly every city is afflicted with not merely one such 
army in possession, but with another in reversion, depend- 
ent on the success of a rival set of city officers, to be 
voted for at the mcoming civic year. And as anticipators 
are ever more numerous than participators, the army of 
hope are generally able to change annually the city gov- 
ernment, and to place it into new hands tremulous with 
gratitude to partisans who press around for remuneration, 
with an appetite sharpened by a year's abstinence, and 
made impatient by the consciousness that the time to make 
hay is while the sun shines. Even Utica has not always 
been exempt from the foregoing vices, that seem not the 
fault of individuals, but rather of the bad organization of 



MUNICIPAL CORPORATIONS. 185 

which she participates ; for one of her ex-aldermen has 
said, that when he once boggled about the expediency of 
some projected costly improvement, he was told explicitly 
by the " wheel within awheel" of his day, that if such was 
his course his career would be short. We have not, how- 
ever, approached the point arrived at in some older city, 
when an alderman sometimes becomes so suddenly rich, 
that it reveals a foregone secret iniquity, as unmistakably 
as the sudden expansion of a spinster's waist. 

But our concern is not with evils, which, like collusion 
with contractors, depend for their cure on a reformation of 
public morals, but on such as the approaching Constitutional 
Convention may remedy. Every city improvement of a 
street must necessarily benefit some person specially, in 
addition to the general benefit. The like can be said 
whenever a country road district improves a highway, or 
our State constructs a canal, or the General Government a 
harbor ; but nowhere except in our cities is the incidental 
beneficiary compelled to pay the whole expense of the im- 
provement, so that the public, which orders the improve- 
ment, may obtain it free from charge. In thus reversing 
the principle which, in our General and State Govern- 
ments, looks to the public benefit only, and disregards 
incidental private advantage, we, in effect, take private 
property for public use without adequate compensation sat- 
isfactory to the owner, and concentrate ruinously on a few 
persons an expense which, if borne ratably by all the 
property of the city, would seriously afflict none. Men 
who congregate in cities may be supposed willing to bear 
all burdens that on known principles are incident to a 
dense and luxurious population ; but we need not suppose 
them willing to see principles reversed, and to sufTer as 
morally right in cities what would be morally wrong in 



186 MUNICIPAL CORPORATIONS. 

Other places. Nothing exists analogous to the foregoing 
city code, except the former postage system, that now is 
generally execrated, and mainly for the feature in which 
the analogy resides, namely, for making the incidental 
private benefit to individuals in employing the post-office 
a means of extorting from them all the expense of the mail 
system, thereby enabling the public to use it free of expense 
for all the lavish purposes of all the departments of the 
Government; just as the incidental private benefit to a man 
in living on a paved street is made the pretext for extort- 
ing from him all the expense of the pavement, which is 
thereafter to be used, free of expense, by the community, 
with all the vehicles they may choose. 

City assessments which produce these results are found- 
ed on a clause that exists in city charters, directing the 
exyjense of civic improvements to be assessed on the real 
estate benefitted thereby, and on every piece of real estate 
in proportion to its respective benefit. The provision 
contains a pernicious fallacy, in assuming that the benefit 
is only local ; that it is confined to real estate, and that the 
local benefit is always pecuniarily equal to the cost of the 
improvement; while, practically, the filling up in front of a 
lot mav cost a thousand dollars, and the lot subsequently 
be not saleable for half the money. Such inequalities, 
varying in degree, attend every improvement, and always 
to the impoverishment of the land-holder, because no im- 
provement is worth to any given lot more than its utility 
to the person who resides on the lot ; but the improvement 
is not graduated to subserve his use alone, but it is made 
sufficiently extensive in dimensions for the public at large, 
and sufficiently elegant to gratify the public taste. 

But were civic improvements to become a general 
charge on the city, we may be told that a constant strug- 



MUNICIPAL CORPORATIONS. 187 

gle would ensue for the location, as we see in Congress 
when rivers are to be improved, and in our Legislature 
when a penitentiary is to be constructed. Such struggles 
are, however, only for location, not for the construction of 
useless works. So in cities, the struggle would not be for 
useless improvements while the eyes of an interested com- 
munity were gazing on the fraudful advocates. And, as 
an additional guard, every city should be limited in its an- 
nual expenditures to a given sum, to be annually ascer- 
tained by the vote of the people, as is now practised in 
country towns ; or, if the sum is to be determmed by the 
Legislature, it should be so small a per centage on the tax- 
able property within the city as to leave no range for ex- 
travagance. Utica is limited now to an annual general 
tax of eight thousand dollars ; but the power to burden by 
special tax is unlimited. This feature alone of our charter 
shows glaringly the inherent protective tendency of a com- 
mon liability, and the inherent licentious tendency of with- 
drawing such protection from any portion of the community ; 
hence the cogency of the crafty maxim, "divide and con- 
quer ;" for every whole can command justice by controlling 
at elections, and by remodelling, if necessary, the charter ; 
but the especially oppressed can appeal only to sympathy . 
and abstract justice, while the principle that afflicts them 
(special taxation for public improvements) bribes all the 
rest of the community to stifle sympathy and disregard jus- 
tice. Even a knowledge by every man, that he may in 
turn suffer a like oppression, moves but feebly where the 
impending evil is contingent and may be remote ; hence 
usu lly municipal legislators are left to an undisturbed 
control over the land-holders whom they may choose to 
victimize, while others look on with the philosophic calm- 
ness that is proverbial to men in the contemplation of 



188 EXECUTIVE PATRONAGE. 

Others' woes. The evil is fast detracting from the value 
of city property every where, while in places that are not 
vigorous in prosperity, real estate in n:iany localities is worse 
than valueless ; still, so few men are much affected by ab- 
stract considerations, that special grievances are the last to 
find redress. The great source of hope consists in the pos- 
sibility that the evil may fall within the correction of some 
wholesome general principles that the coming State Con- 
vention may think proper to adopt ; as, for instance :* 

First ; That no land shall be compulsorily taken for any 
street, rail-road, canal, public highway, or other purpose, 
without full compensation to the owner for his land, and 
damage, irrespective of any benefit that may accrue to him 
or hi*^ remaining property by reason of the use to which 
the land is to be appropriated. 

Secondly ; That no person or property shall be compul- 
sorily assessed or taxed for any object, except ratably in 
common with all the persons or property within the com- 
munity who shall order the tax or assessment. 



EXECUTIVE PATKONAGE. 

In monarchies, all official powers are deemed emana- 
tions from the monarch, and therefore to be dispensed by 
his agency ; hence, when our States and Nation began to 
form Constitutions, the absence of the kingly power re- 
quired the origination of some new principle by which 
offices should be filled. The people occupied the throne of 
the monarch, but for them to exercise his appointing pre- 

» The first of the above clauses is now become the usual mode of assessment that the 
Legislature directs, when private property is to be taken for any public use. 



EXECUTIVE PATRONAGE. 189 

rogatives, was too sudden a transition towards Democracy 
to find favor with the framers of our early governments. 
In the Convention which formed the United States Con- 
stitution, the people were freely characterized as too igno- 
rant, and easily deluded, to vote in the selection of their 
immediate representative, the President, till by a process 
like the rectification of impure whiskey, their wishes were 
strained through a body of special electors. The inventors 
of this system little imagined that these wise special electors 
would almost immediately degenerate into mere automa- 
tons, to parrot only what the people should predetermine, 
and thus at their solemn meetings to enact a solemn farce ; 
well watched also, to prevent the enacting of anything but 
a farce. The distrust thus avowed of the popular will has 
been gradually subsiding, till the people, like a minor king, 
are approaching the period when all regencies must end, 
and the appointing power be assumed by them as the right- 
ful sovereign. Already in Mississippi every oflice is 
elective, from the highest judicial to the lowest executive, 
the whole people electing officers whose functions embrace 
the State, while local officers are elected by the respective 
localities. 

Our early statesmen, by looking too intently on the 
intellectual defects of the people as an appointing power, 
looked not intently enough on the moral defects of indivi- 
duals for such a duty. Experience has made us wiser. In 
the dead level of our actual equality, pride almost starves 
for something to feed on ; hence all offices that can confer 
honor are ravenously sought ; and when the offices confer 
emolument also, two of the fiercest of passions, avarice and 
ambition, become united, and their conjoint assaults make 
sad havoc with the abstract good intentions of the unprac- 
tised men, whom our institutions suddenly invest with 



190 EXECUTIVE PATRONAGE. 

executive patronage, to say nothing of the personal tempt- 
ations which beset a man when he can, by a legal exercise 
of his powers, exalt in wealth and station his kinsmen and 
adherents. The ablest Chancellor our country has pro- 
duced,* and whose artlessness and purity were as eminent 
as his professional researches were profound, was still unable 
to refrain from bestowing on his brother the lucrative office 
of Register. He was only following the bad precedent of 
his predecessor, and foreshadowing in nearly all his suc- 
cessors a like practice, till such offices in all our courts are 
become a sort of sailors' snug harbor for valetudinary 
judges and their dependents. We may admit that our 
judges of law and equity have conferred on the country as 
much honor as the country has conferred on them, and 
given in righteous judgments more than an equivalent for 
their salaries. We may admit also, that a kinsman may 
dischargCj^as well as a stranger, the duties of his office ; 
let, therefore, the recording angel blot out such records 
from Heaven's chancery, but to us the recollection may be 
permitted, as establishing the inherent unfitness of any 
man for the distribution of public honors and emoluments. 
Our first Constitution sought a guarantee against the 
Governor's selfishness, by subjecting his appointments to 
the approval of four senators. This soon became unsatis- 
factory, and a constitutional amendment gave the four 
senators an appointing power conjointly with the Governor. 
Admonished, however, by numerous appointments founded 
on no public propriety, our present Constitution restored 
the appointing power to the Governor alone, but subjected 
it to the ratification of the Senate ; and, to further purify 
the source of honor, withdrew many appointments from the 
Executive, and scattered them to the Legislature and 

* Chancellor Kent. 



EXECUTIVE PATRONAGE. 191 

among the people. The change is principally inaportant, 
as evincing the growing discontent with Executive ap- 
pointments, and a growing public opinion in favor of the 
people, who thereby acquired the election of sheriffs, 
county clerks, and militia officers. The people were not 
yet deemed competent to elect judicial functionaries, but a 
constitutional amendment soon overleaped this barrier, and 
made justices elective, and mayors of cities. Nor has the 
advance stopped, but running ahead of the Constitution, 
public opinion forces every Governor to appoint county 
judges and other local officers, not according to his own 
pleasure, or, as formerly, at the secret bidding of partisan 
chiefs, but at the recommendation of popular assemblages. 
Still, this is defective. The people never act anywhere so 
well as at the ballot-boxes. Every other gathering can be 
only a meeting of delegates, and every delegate adulterates 
the general interest by some commingling of his private 
interest. But these reasons in favor of conferring on the 
people all appointments, are the sturdiest obstacles against 
the measure. All who live by office are interested in 
keeping the trade as secure as possible, and nothing would 
be so destructive of this end as an appointing body like 
the people — too diversified for intrigue, too numerous to be 
swayed by personal motives, and too unwieldy to be man- 
aged. Who can avoid detecting an absence of these 
wholesome checks in the spectacle, everywhere apparent, 
of some men who are always in office, and with whom 
rotation is only the exchange of a high office for a higher, 
like a snake w^hich parts from its old skin only to assume a 
new one and a better. Several such officers are grown 
old under the drippings of the Treasury, and are become 
dogmatical ; they have rotated till they are giddy, and the 
people are weary of them ; but the evil continues unabated 



192 EXECUTIVE PATRONAGE. 

from personal delicacy towards the incumbents, and which 
susceptibility by the present appointing power constitutes 
one of its worst characteristics. The people are too inde- 
finite for delicacy, and therefore are admirably fitted for 
the stern distri bution of patronage. The appointing pow- 
ers, as at present organized in a Governor and Legislature, 
possess also an unwholesome prepossession towards men 
of their own order. Last winter, two aspirants for a high 
office were presented to a legislative caucus. Both were 
young ; one had nothing to recommend him but his merits; 
the other, with perhaps equal merits, had been conceived 
in a high office, brought forth in a higher, and reared in 
the highest, and he accordingly triumphed over his humble 
competitor. This sympathy, which every grade of society 
feels for the members of its own order, constitutes in aris- 
tocratic governments one of their most depressing features. 
Why should we not give to the humble the benefit of the 
same principle, by placing the appointing power in the 
people? The lowly, in their struggles upward, would then 
be aided by the sympathy of the appointing masses, and, 
at worst, not be oppressed by a sympathy against them. 
And what can be more benevolent and deserving of our 
favor, than a principle which thus levels upwards in all 
contests between persons equally qualified — raising the 
-low, rather, than as now, making the high higher ? 

And in the present appointing power, who can avoid 
seeing, also, that it is manageable to the precision of a 
barter, when occasionally a high officer is suddenly elevated 
higher, leaving his old place most opportunely for the 
necessities of some person whose agency, or his friends, 
was necessary in the transfer. Cases of this kind are so 
managed as to involve no gross immorality, but they evince 
the hopelessness of aspirations after office, when a man 



EXECUTIVE PATRONAGE. 193 

possesses no support for his pretensions but a fitness for 
the station. 

Nor have we yet enumerated all the vices of our present 
system, or all the interests that will struggle against its 
subversion. It is a powerful instrument of partisan leaders, 
to whom the two thousand appointments, and more, which 
are in the gift of the Executive, constitute a sort of prize 
money with which to stimulate the hopes and reward the 
zeal of personal adherents. No charity can avoid believ- 
ing that a large portion of offices were created origin- 
ally for no other purpose than the foregoing, and are pre- 
served for no other end. Admirably, also, are they 
adapted in number to the exigency of the demand, and in 
quality to the capacity of the recipients — ranging from the 
solitary inspector of beef for the New-York Jews, onwards 
through hosts of inspectors, measurers, and weighers of 
everything everywhere, and upwards, to notaries, exam- 
iners, registers, commissioners of many things, agents, ap- 
praisers, special justices, marshals, and judges, to the chan- 
cellor in single and solitary grandeur, who, when once 
seated for life at ambition's topmost round, wonders pro- 
bably at the fortitude which can endure the toil of climbing 
ambition's dirty ladder. Each by our present bad organ- 
ization, instead of looking to the people for support, is, 
with some (ew exceptions, a spoke in the political wheel of 
some partisan chief, who is himself turned by some greater 
wheel, the whole being kept in its poHtical orbit, not by pa- 
triotism, but by the centripetal force of an office in posses- 
sion, or the centrifugal impulse of an office in expectation. 

Finally, popular appointments will infuse a new interest 
into elections. The people act now so subordinate a part 
in their own affairs, that they require to be annually 
drummed into activity by monster meetings and travelling 
spoil hunters. By acting directly on appointments, and 



194: , SOVEREIGNTY OF THE PEOPLE. 

thus deciding the destiny of their town and county ac- 
quaintances, fas well as of public men everywhere, the 
increased dignity of the elective franchise will add to its 
interest, and our country will be benefitted by the ex- 
pressed opinion at the polls of the whole people, on all 
questions of government, instead of the voice, as usual, of 
only a casually attending portion ; besides, while public 
officers are dependent for promotion on each other, they 
must serve two masters, and inspiration warns us, that men 
thus situated will cling to one and despise the other. Let 
the people, therefore, constitute themselves the sole mas- 
ter, lest occasionally they find themselves (as they have 
found more than once) that they are the master who is 
despised.* 



SOVEEEIGNTI OF THE PEOPLE. 

All governors when single, as in monarchies, or numer- 
ous as in aristocracies, may originate measures for their 
own benefit, and in derogation of their c'ountrymen ; hence 
the evil of such governments. The people collectively can 
never be benefitted by misgovernment; hence the excellency 
of making the whole people the governing power. When 
all men are to eat of the same dish, they possess the guar- 
antee of each that the food shall be wholesome for all. 
But a democracy so pure as the above has never been 
realized ; while our own deficiency therein, after seventy 
years of eflfort, invites us to scrutinize the causes of our fail- 
ure. Foremost among them is the gain which individuals 
make by encroaching on the sovereignty of the people ; and 

* These Amendments were all embodied in the new Constitution. 



SOVEREIG-NTY OF THE PEOPLE. 195 

SO substantial have been the encroachments on us, that we 
possess but a very uncertain voice in the selection of our 
own most immediate legislative representatives. They are 
practically selected for us (no matter to what party we 
belong) by a few managing men in every town, who com- 
pose the rank and file of an organized class throughout the 
State, that make politics a lucrative occupation. To enable 
themselves thus to control the people in the most vital act 
of popular sovereignty, politicians have artfully inculcated, 
that to vote adversely to nominations so concocted, or to be 
a conflicting candidate by self-nomination or by friends, as 
is wholesomely practised universally at the South, is the 
most heinous of political offences ; hence the people possess 
rarely any alternative but to choose between candidates 
who, whatever may constitute their other differences, are 
ahke in being less the representatives of the public than 
of some intrigue concerted in secret long previously to the 
public nomination of the candidates ; and which nomina- 
tion is often as much a mockery of the people, as the poll 
instituted in France by Napoleon to decide whether he 
should become Emperor. Our Government is thus con- 
verted into a sovereignty of political tacticians, rather than 
a sovereignty of the people ; and, accordingly, it admits 
several of the vices that obtain where a few control the 
many. Offices are invented, with elaborate ingenuity, to 
create partisans sufficiently numerous to pervade society, 
and sufficiently dependent to obey leaders. Even the Gen- 
eral Government (unconsciously we hope) is made to fur- 
nish a quota of the required machinery. At least one 
United States' office has for years been located in Utica, 
with an annual salary not small, and for ostensible duties 
so palpably illusory, that the incumbent is probably cau- 
tious to ke§p his office a secret. Like instances are more 



196 SOVEREIGNTY OF THE PlJOPLE. 

numerous in our larger cities. We are an ingenious, 
active people, fiercely fond of money, and these character- 
istics we have introduced rankly into our politics. Thrift, 
which in some countries follows fawning, is more readily 
gained here by active partisanship ; and so essential is one 
to the other, that though thrift may exist in other connec- 
tions, active partisanship seldom long survives the absence 
of thrift. The funds of the State and of the Nation, every 
thing belonging to the public, or connected with Govern- 
ment, from which emolument can be extracted, into what 
channel soever you see it flow, you may almost swear at a 
venture the private gain of some active partisan is the pro- 
pelling agent : just as when you see on a fence the slime of 
a snail, you may be sure that a snail is to be found at the 
end of the trail. Nor are politicians of every creed more 
scrupulous of the means of obtaining power than of thus 
wielding it for profit. Could the anti-renters, by any necro- 
mancy, multiply their numbers at will, we should see that 
as the multiplicator increased, the sin of anti-rentism 
would diminish, till the holy horror against it which is sim- 
ultaneously bursting forth just now at every political meet- 
ing, would be converted into as fierce a rage against land- 
lords as was some years since manufactured against Free 
Masons.* 

That the above vices can be eradicated we ought not to 
expect ; but the coming Convention may much increase 
the control of the people, and diminish the corrupting 
power of politicians; though an ominous presage of disin- 
clination thereto in the Convention is irresistible, should 
the people elect no delegates but those who will be nomi- 
nated by the machinery of partisans whose powers are to be 
circumscribed. But assuming that the people will secure 

* And some years subsequently against Southern slavery. 



SOVEREIGNTY OF THE PEOPLE. 197 

an honest effort to achieve their own permanent supremacy, 
much will be gained in a new Constitution, by electing our 
one hundred and twenty-eight Assemblymen, not by coun- 
ties, as at present, but by small districts, into one hundred 
and twenty-eight of which the State can be divided :* that 
the people may as personally as possible create the law- 
making power, which, when pure, is usually able to purify 
all other powers. The like may be said in favor of electing 
our thirty-two Senators, in thirty-two Senate districts, 
instead of eight, as at present, — in imitation of the improve- 
ment effected recently by Congress, in the election by single 
districts of congressional representatives. 

Nor would such a blow at the machinery of party destroy 
any of the virtuous objects of party distinctions. Those of 
us who delight in the sovereignty of the people ought to 
obtain some better guarantee therefor than the political 
professions of our annually elected representatives. The 
principles which we wish to perpetuate, can be so inter- 
woven into the Constitution as to insure for our laws the 
desired degree of democracy, whoever may chance to 
become the legislators ; just as a skilful engineer, in con- 
structing the track of a rail-road, establishes once for all 
the course which every car must travel, whoever may 
superintend its periodical transits. 

The right to amend at pleasure their form of government, 
is another power which ought to be possessed perpetually, 
by the people, and which, more than any other security, 
will enable them to abidingly realize their sovereignty in 
the consciousness of a power to which all others are con- 
tinually subordinate. We have seen in Rhode Island how 
a Legislature will withstand the people, even to the sword 
and cannon, when circumstances will permit the usurpation, 

* This was adopted in the new Constitution, and also the provision as to Senators. 



198 SOVEREIGNTY OF THE PEOPLE. 

and make obedience to the popular will a State-prison 
offence. We have seen in our own Legislature that the 
present opportunity to meet together in Convention, and 
devise improvements, was accorded to the people by an 
accident, in the casual disagreement of factions, though the 
impossibility.had been several times demonstrated, that re- 
forms widely demanded could not otherwise be obtained, and 
that the courts of law were almost literally closed to the dis- 
charge of suitors. Thus taught by experience, and fortu- 
itously re-invested with a power that had been unwisely 
abandoned, never again let the sceptre depart from Judah 
till Shiloh come.* 

If five able-bodied sailors were shipwrecked on an unin- 
habited island, any three of them might make a constitu- 
tion, which the remaining two might be compelled to obey, 
not by force of any artificial compact, but by the natural 
preponderance of three over two. This constitutes what 
men call the inalienable right of revolution, and but for 
this benevolent provision of nature, (instituted probably 
in pity of human imprudence,) the majority of every coun- 
try would long since have irrevocably sold themselves to 
some artful minority. To the natural right of majorities 
our governments have added the obligation of artificial 
compact ; still the principle is not made universal, for so 
slow is the progress of truth when it conflicts with long 
established error, that the constitutions of many States 
prohibit the inhabitants from modifying their government 
without the assent of two-thirds of the Legislature ; thus 
making the Legislature sovereign over the people, and 
committing the further essential error of enabling a 
minority of the Legislature to defeat the wishes of a ma- 

* The Constitution of 1821 contained no provision for tlie calling of a Convention by 
the people to revise the then existing Constitution. 



SOVEREIGNTY OF THE PEOPLE. 199 

jority. The framers of these Constitutions probably sup- 
posed that the alteration of a statute is less important than 
the alteration of a Constitution, and hence that a statute 
should be more easily alterable ; but why should theynot 
have argued that a constitutional error is more fatal than 
the error of a lav^ and hence that the power to amend a 
constitution should be at least as certain of accomplishment 
as the amendment of a law. Indiana substantially avoids 
these errors, by instituting an election every twelve years, 
at which a revision of its Constitution by a Convention is 
submitted to the popular decision. By the Constitution of 
New-Hampshire, a poll is opened every seven years in the 
several towns, by the supervisors thereof, and the people 
vote for or against a Convention. Every town sends the 
result to the Legislature, who are to call a Convention if 
the people have so directed ; but, strange to say, (except 
that this Constitution was made in 1792,) the amendments 
of the Convention are not to be obligatory, unless subse- 
quently ratified by two-thirds of the people who vote 
thereon — a condition which the endless diversity of opinion 
must often make unattainable, and which, when unattained, 
must ever tempt the disappointed majority to resort (as is 
our case at this moment) to a revolution — though happily, 
according to the good sense of the times, ours is a peaceful 
one. If those who feel power proverbially forget right, can 
a system be safe which thwarts men who, being a majority, 
possess power and right combined ? 

Nearly every Convention that assembles to create a Con- 
stitution, evinces a desire to immortalize its labors by 
making amendments difficult. The practice is founded in 
self-love, and is as ancient as history ; but till the framers 
of a Constitution are wiser than all other men, no reason 
exists why a future Convention shall not be able, with the 



200 SOVEREIGNTY OF THE PEOPLE. 

benefit of experience superadded, to make regulations 
equally wise ; nor why two-thirds of the people, or Legis- 
lature, shall be indispensable before a change can be effect- 
ed in what was originally decreed by a simple majority, 
who acted in advance of experience, and consequently in 
the dark. An English writer of the last century, Godwin, 
says, substantially, in reference to this subject: " Everlast- 
ing innovation seems the true interest of man, but govern- 
ments are perpetually the enemy of change. Instead of 
suffering us to proceed onward, they teach us to look 
backward for perfection, as if the human mind always 
degenerated — never advanced. Every scheme for embody- 
ing perfection must be injurious, for a present melioration 
will probably become a future defect." Let the people, 
therefore, not trust to even a majority of the Legislature 
for future constitutional amendments, but keep the power 
in their own only honest hands, like the citizens of New- 
Hampshire, that by a vote in their own town meetings, or 
otherwise, an ascertained majority of the people may at 
any time demand of the Legislature the call of a Conven- 
tion. We have been urged to estimate as of vital import- 
ance whether the coming Convention shall submit to us its 
amendments separately or together ; but the question will 
be disarmed of its chief cogency, when we cease from esti- 
mating the adoption of the amendments as a species of 
matrimony, to endure "for better for worse, till death us 
do part." The framers of our present Constitution placed 
at its commencement a devout acknowledgment of grati- 
tude to God for permitting us to make choice of a form of 
government. Let us enlarge the prayer, and be able to 
thank God that we can abidingly exercise such a choice. 
We shall thus ensure, during all coming time, to ourselves 
and our posterity, the correction of evils before we become 



SOVEREIGNTY OF THE PEOPLE. 20 i 

hardened to them by custom, submissive to them through 
despair, or maddened by them into rebelhon, and shall keep 
the honorable the Legislature, and all other honorables, in 
constant admonition that, though the Convention is passed 
away, and a new political millennium is begun, the people 
are not bound, like Satan, for any given number of years, 
but are unshackled and vigilant, all powerful to correct 
abuses, and as wilhng as powerful.* 

* The new Constitution embodies these views. 

10 



CHAPTER II 



OF PRIVATE CORPORATIONS. 



LEGISLATIVE HISTOEY OF COEPOKATIONS IN THE STATE OF 
NEW-YOKK: OE, THE PEOGEESS OF LIBEEAL SENTIMENTS.^ 



* 



§ 1. State Constitution of 1777. — The first Constitu- 
tion of New- York contained no specific provision for the 
creation of corporations, and they came into existence as 
only an incident of the general powers of the Legislature. 
The Legislature, on being solicited to create them, came 
easily to deem them favors, which were to be dispensed 
sparingly, lest capitalists should refuse to invest money in 
corporate enterprises — a notion that was assiduously pro- 
pagated by the few then existing corporations, who natu- 
rally loved the possession of special privileges, and, perhaps, 
honestly feared competition. 

Banking came early to be deemed peculiarly within the 
province of corporate agency, and as the business was 
lucrative to capitalists, and to men void of capital, who 
desired to borrow, a sharp contest soon arose between ap- 
plicants for new banking corporations, and the existing 
banks that resisted the creation of rival institutions. This 
resistance was deemed so effective, that, in April, 1799, a 
bank was smuggled through the Legislature, under the guise 
of a charter " to supply the City of New- York with pure 
and wholesome water." Such an expedient could neces- 

* Published in 1851. 



HISTORY OF CORPORATIONS IN NEW- YORK. 203 

sarily not be immediately repeated ; hence, in the year 
1803, some persons associated without a legislative grant, 
and organized a joint stock bank in the City of New-York, 
on a species of limited partnership, and another was formed 
on the same principle in Albany. But the influence which 
could prevent the creation of banking incorporations was 
sufficient to procure, when the Legislature assembled, the 
enactment, in the spring of 1804, of a law to prohibit un- 
chartered banking, and under its very penal restraints the 
joint stock associations were suppressed, and banking, 
which previously was a lawful business to any person who 
possessed the requisite means of conducting it, was made 
a franchise, to be exercised only under a special grant of 
the Legislature. It qualifiedly continues a franchise up 
to this day, except as to the reception of deposits, and 
making of discounts, which branches of banking were, in 
the year 1837, exempted from the restraining law, and 
made lawful to any person, or persons, except foreign banks 
and officers of the chartered banks of the State. 

§ 2. Lobby Members. — To resist the creation of new 
banks, or to assist in procuring them, came at length to be 
a regular mercenary employment, by men who, like the 
straw bail in courts of law, attended the halls of legislation 
to be hired, and were sarcastically called lobby members. 
They disguised their venality, by feigning to possess a re- 
putable interest in the projects they undertook to support, 
or to be patriotic promoters of the measures for merely an 
alleged public benefit ; or if they were hired to oppose the 
measures, they feigned to be disinterested exponents of an 
alleged hostile public sentiment. Some of the persons thus 
engaged were otherwise respectable, and some were even 
distinguished as men of station, talent, and wealth. But 
the practices to which they resorted in secret, were worse 



204 LEGISLATIVE HISTORY OF CORPOBATIOISS 

than their open acts, and became so threatening to public 
virtue, that on the 27th March, 1812, the then Governor 
of the State, Daniel D. Tompkins, terminated abruptly the 
Legislature, by prorogation, that the members might have 
time for reflection on the appliances to which they were 
ostensibly yielding. He declared, in a public message, 
*' that beyond any reason of doubt, corrupting inducements 
were, some years since, held out to the members of the 
Legislature, to obtain their votes for the incorporation of a 
banking institution in the City of New- York, and very 
strong and general suspicion existed, that the emoluments 
then tendered were, in certain instances, accepted, thereby 
inflicting a deep wound upon the honor of the State, and 
upon the purity and independence of legislation. At the 
last session, an act was passed incorporating the late Jersey 
Bank, and a very general public opinion exists, that un- 
warrantable attempts were resorted to, on that occasion, to 
influence unduly the then Legislature. The journals of 
the Assembly show that attempts have been made to cor- 
rupt, by bribes, four members of that body, in relation to 
the bank now under consideration, and that improper in- 
fluences have been employed on, at least, one member of 
the Senate. I entertain, therefore, the most fearful appre- 
hensions that the confidence of the people, in the purity 
and independence of the Legislature, will be fatally im- 
paired." 

§ 3. Legislation against the tendency of Nature. — 
But the evil reprobated by the governor was not curable 
by prorogation, and when the Legislature re-assembled on 
the 21st of the following May, the bank, which had caused 
the prorogation, was triumphantly incorporated. The evil 
of the times consisted, not in the susceptibility to bribery 
of the Legislature, nor in the existence of corrupt corpora- 



IN THE STATE OF NEW-YORK. 205 

tion procurers, but in the attempt to restrain the creation 
of corporations that were lucrative to the corporators, and 
beneficial to the public. We might well despair of the 
purity of legislation, at any time, if its security consisted 
in the absence of bribes. Providence has so organized 
man that he can rarely be bribed to perpetrate actions that 
will affect, injuriously, private persons or the public ; but he 
can be easily bribed to perform actions which he deems 
beneficial, how much soever any erroneous laws may in- 
terdict them. Beneficial laws are rarely violated, and the 
violation of them is always d.sreputable ; but laws of an 
opposite character are everywhere violated systematically, 
and the violation of them is hardly disreputable. Men will 
endeavor to circumvent unjust restraints ; hence, in the 
year 1816, another attempt to smuggle through the Legis- 
lature a bank charter, was again successful in an act to 
incorporate an insurance company, though it was met by a 
new restraining law on the 21st of April, 1818, which. 
Tinder very penal enactments, stopped the newly-discovered 
leak in the existing prohibitions. The above examples 
show the demoralizing effect of legislative attempts to re- 
strain men unnecessarily from promoting their own inter- 
ests. The rape perpetrated on the Sabine women by the 
Romans, was more a sin of the Sabines, who refused their 
daughters in marriage to the Romans, than of the Romans, 
who were destitute of women. In a recent publication of 
Carlyle, he reprobates legislation that is counter to the 
laws of God, and he probably alludes to legislation like the 
foregoing, which unnecessarily conflicts with the fruition of 
man's natural aspirations. 

§ 4. The Constitution of 1777 superseded by the 
Constitution of 1821. — When our State adopted a new 
Constitution in 1821, corporations were for the first time 



206 LEGISLATIVE H [STORY OF CORPORATIONS 

recognized as one of the great interests which the organic 
law should regulate. The legislation which we have de- 
scribed had long caused corporations to be deemed odious 
monopolies, and partisan agitators designated bankers as 
*' rag barons," and manufacturers as " cotton lords." The 
new Constitution, in attempting to remedy the existing 
evil, prohibited the creation of any new corporation, except 
by the affirmative vote of two-thirds of the members elect- 
ed to each branch of the Legislature. This alteration was 
either a political blunder of men who wished to remedy an 
existing evil without knowing how, or it was a stratagem 
of interested men to perpetuate existing monopolies, by 
rendering the creation almost hopeless of competing new 
institutions. But contrary to every reasonable expecta- 
tion, the restraints imposed by the new Constitution fa- 
cilitated the creation of corporations, by reason that a 
negative vote came to be deemed a harsh exercise of an 
unreasonable power, while an affirmative vote came to be 
deemed a common courtesy, which every member of the 
Legislature ought to grant to a fellow-member, w^hose 
constituents desired to participate in corporate privileges. 
So numerous, by these means, became banking corpora- 
tions, that except in some few inland localities, no pecu- 
niary interest existed to resist the further creation of those 
institutions. Hence, in the year 1838, a law was enacted 
by which banks could be instituted by voluntary associa- 
tions, under prescribed general forms and regulations. 
The Legislature was unable to accord to the associations a 
complete corporate organization, by reason that the Con- 
stitution had been construed as prohibiting the creation of 
more than a single corporation in any one bill. The 
associations are, however, essentially corporations, though 
not endued with the usually prescribed machinery of a 



IN THE STATE OF NEW-YORK. 207 

corporate seal, a board of directors, and a right to sue and 
be sued, under a corporate name, and without the usually 
prescribed limitation to the number of the directors, the 
duration of their office, and the mode of their election. The 
associations have remedied such of these omissions as are 
remediable ; but some of the associations have adopted few 
directors, and some many. Some are governed by direct- 
ors, who are chosen annually, while others are governed 
by directors who are never elected by the stockholders, but 
continue in the office for life, with a power in the survivors 
of the board to supply all vacancies that may happen 
therein by death or resignation. Such an organization 
seems almost irreconcilable with honest intentions on the 
part of the originators, and is certainly capable of great 
perversion against stockholders, who happen not to be 
directors ; but we have heard of no fraudulent result, a fact 
which shows remarkably that the absence of dishonest 
practices depends but little on legislative precautions, and 
that honest practices depend as little on legislative fur- 
therance. 

§ 5. The Constitution of 1846. — Thus existed corpo- 
rate agency, and banking corporations in particular, when 
the Constitution of 1821 was superseded, in 1846, by our 
present Constitution. The old argument, that corporations 
could not sustain unrestricted competition, had been dis- 
proved by eight years of prosperous experience in banking, 
under the above system of voluntary associations, and of 
several laws for the creation, at will, in 1811, of manufac- 
turing corporations; in 1813, of religious corporations, 
medical corporations, and colleges ; and, as early as in 1796, 
of corporate libraries ; besides the daily experience, in his 
private concerns, of every man, that " competition is the life 
of business," — not its death. The Convention that formed 





%1^. 



tte of R 




210 ADVANTAGES A1<^D DISADVANTAGES 



ADVANTAGES AND DISADVANTAGES OE PEIVATE 
COKPOEATIONS.* 

PART I. 

THEIR ADVANTAGES. 

An absence of great wealth was common to the in- 
habitants of the United States at the commencement of 
our national Independence, and such a condition of society 
came soon to be deemed preservative of our republican 
institutions ; hence a mediocrity of property among our 
citizens v^^as early promoted in the State of New- York 
by an abolishment of entailments, a suppression of the 
English rights of primogeniture, and of protracted fidu- 
ciary accumulations. By the operation of these pre- 
ventives our State would have possessed few large manu- 
facturing establishments, and accomplished little in bank- 
ing, insurance, and railroads, had not the absence of great 
capitaUsts been remedied by corporate associations, which 
aggregate the resources of many persons, and thereby yield 
us the advantages of great capitals without the supposed 
disadvantages of great private fortunes. Corporations are, 
therefore, the rose of wealth without its supposed thorn ; 
artificial pecuniary giants, without the dangers that might 
be consequent to the existence of natural giants. 

THEY ARE NOT NECESSARILY MONOPOLIES. 

Corporations are occasionally permitted to engross some 
business, to the exclusion of natural persons ; as till recently 
in our State, the business of banking, and as formerly in 

* Published iu December, 1850. 



OF PHI V ATE CORPOKATIONS. 211 

England, the trade to China by the East India Company. 
Such a monopoly by corporations is only one of the perver- 
sions to which corporate agency is liable, and must be care- 
fully separated from characteristics that are essential to cor- 
porations, or we may become unjustly prejudiced against 
them. Nor must we estimate corporations invidiously by 
reason that the Legislature endues them with powers that are 
denied to natural persons ; as, for instance, the power to ob- 
tain lands compulsorily for turnpike, plank, and rail roads. 
The denial of such a power to natural persons is not essen- 
tial to corporations, but is founded on views of public 
policy, for whose correctness or incorrectness corporations 
are not properly responsible, 

COKPORATiONS llEMEDY SOME DEFECTS THAT ARE INSEPARABLE 
FROM NATURAL PERSONS. 

Unlike natural persons, corporations can be endued 
by the Legislature with an immunity from death, com- 
mensurate with the business the corporation is designed 
to undertake ; hence it can safely contract for the pay- 
ment of perpetual annuities, and the execution of pro- 
tracted trusts. Its body is exempt also from change of 
residence ; and its youth and vigor are perpetuated by 
a succession of fresh managers, as the old become wearied, 
infirm, or disaffected ; while its funds can neither be legally 
diverted from its business by caprice, nor withdrawn by 
personal necessities, nor squandered by the enticements of 
personal appetites. 

SOME CORPORATE PRIVILEGES ARE COMMUNICABLE TO NATURAL 

PERSONS. 

Several years ago our State enabled any person to 
form a commercial co-partnership, and to limit his lia- 
bility therein to a sum prescribed by himself. Such a co= 



212 ADVANTAGFS AND DISADVANTAGES 

partnership assimilated, in its limited liability, to one of 
the great advantages possessed by corporations. The Legis- 
lature of 1849 effected two other important assimilations 
of natural persons to corporations. It enabled every vol- 
untary joint stock association, when composed of seven or 
more persons, to sue and be sued in the name of its presi- 
dent or treasurer ; and that the suit shall not abate by 
the removal from ofRce, or death of the officers, or any of 
the associates. The general banking law^ and the general, 
laws for the formation of manufacturing establishments, in- 
surance companies, plank, turnpike, and rail roads, go far, 
also, to enable any natural person to transact business for 
himself under a corporate organization. Our law-makers 
should consider whether natural persons cannot be further 
intrusted with corporate powers ; for such a levelling up 
of natural persons to the privilege of corporations is a more 
enlightened liberality than to level down corporations to 
the disadvantages of a natural person ; a tendency which 
seems to exist among our law-makers ; as, for instance, the 
increasing but paralyzing practice of making corporators 
personally responsible for the debts of the corporations. 

SOCIAL PROGRESS IS TRANSFERRED BY CORPORATIONS FROM THE 
TIMID TO THE BOLD, AND FROM THE FEW TO THE MANY. 

The discovery of America was delayed till Columbus 
could induce some sovereign to equip an expedition ; and 
when England desired a canal, only some Duke of Bridge- 
water could undertake it ; but by the aggregating process 
of corporations, the greatest enterprises are within the ca- 
pacity of any man who can inspire his fellow-men with 
confidence in his project ; and thus corporations transfer 
social progress from the rich, who are always comparatively 
few in number, to the relatively poor, who are numerous. 



OF PRIVATE CORPORATIONS. 218 

Nor is this all. Men's timidity and lack of enterprise are 
naturally great in proportion to the largeness of their prop- 
erty, while men are usually bold and enterprising in pro- 
portion to their lack of wealth ; hence corporations, in 
transferring social progress from the rich to the relatively 
poor, transfer it from the timid to the bold, as well as from 
the few to the many. 

MEN RELY TOO MUCH ON GOVERNMENTS, AND TOO LITTLE ON 
INDIVIDUAL EFFICIENCY. 

Only a few years ago Professor Morse deemed the con- 
struction of an extensive electric telegraph impracticable, 
except by the General Government. Fortunately the Gov- 
ernment repelled him, as it had repelled De Witt Clinton, 
when he supposed the Erie Canal could not be built without 
aid from the National Treasury; and to these refusals we owe 
the numerous telegraphs with which private corporations 
are pervading our country, and the numerous canals with 
which the States have enriched their respective sovereign- 
ties, — improvements greatly more extensive than the Gen- 
eral Government could have accomplished had it been ever 
so willing. Disadvantageous agencies, like the United 
States in the above instances, seem naturally obdurate in a 
degree proportioned to their unfitness ; and thus Providence 
drives mankind to the adoption of advantageous agencies. 
Without such a Providence every man's aspirations would 
terminate in calls on some Hercules, instead of eliciting an 
energetic exercise of his own powers. But we evolve 
principles practically long before we see them specula- 
tively, or we should not persevere as we do in a reliance on 
the General Government for what we technically term in- 
ternal improvements, and which, except for such a reli- 
ance, would speedily be accomplished, to every profitable 



211 ADVANTAGES AND DISADVANTAGES 

extent, by our States individually or their people. The re- 
liance of colonies on the mother country is the principal 
reason why colonies (the Canadas, for instance,) contrast 
disadvantageously in social progress with the States of our 
Union, and why our States increased rapidly in power after 
their separation from Great Britain. 

PRIVATE ENTERPRISE IS MORE EFFICIENT THAN GOVERNMENTAL 
ENTERPRISE. 

What is said above of a nation and its colonies, is true 
of a State and its inhabitants. Such of our States, for in- 
stance, as relied, like Michigan and Pennsylvania, on State 
agency for the construction of railroads, became insolvent, 
and were unable to complete their undertakings ; while the 
States, like New-York and Massachusetts, which con- 
structed raih'oads by private corporations, completed more 
railroads than the former States even contemplated. Are- 
cent American writer contrasts Massachusetts with Bel- 
gium in railway enterprises : Massachusetts, with less than a 
million of inhabitants, having completed more than a thou- 
sand miles of railroad, while Belgium, '' the ancient centre 
of commerce and arts," with four millions of inhabitants, 
has completed not quite four hundred miles of railroad. 
The writer endeavors to enhance the contrast in favor of 
Massachusetts, by stating that its railroads were con- 
structed by the private enterprise of its citizens, while 
Belgium constructed hers with her public credit and rev- 
enue as a sovereign State. This circumstance, however, 
when well considered, destroys the contrast between Mas- 
sachusetts and Belgium as sovereign States, and contrasts 
more truly the efficiency of private enterprise over the 
efficiency of governmental enterprise. The history of 
New- York yields another corroboration of the superiority 



OF PRIVATE CORPORATION-'. 215 

of private enterprise over governmental efforts ; for, while 
New- York, some few years since, suspended the enlarge- 
ment of her Erie Canal, as an effort too large for her State 
resources, the inhabitants of the City of New-York (an in- 
tegral fraction of the people of the State), prosecuted suc- 
cessfully their Croton Water Works, at an expenditure 
greater than the amount which arrested the State works 
on the canal. Such results seem paradoxical ; but they 
proceed from a great practical truth, that the efficiency of 
the inhabitants of any country is the efficiency of one per- 
son multiplied by the whole number of the inhabitants, 
while the efficiency of the Government is only some trifling 
per centage of the general efficiency. The whole revenue, 
for instance, of the United States Government, including 
money borrowed to pay preexisting debts, is not more 
than from a dollar and fifty cents the year for each inhab- 
itant, to two dollars and fifty cents ; a sum not equal, prob- 
ably, to what the inhabitants expend annually in shoes alone, 
or some other trifling article of general convenience or 
luxury. A great delusion exists in a man's mode of 
estimating the resources of a government. He estimates 
them by a contrast with his own resources, hence their 
apparent magnitude; but they will always be found small 
if contrasted with the resources of all the inhabitants of the 
nation. So a mountain seems huge when it greatly ex- 
ceeds in size some neighboring hill, but, when contrasted 
with the surface of the whole earth, the greatest mountain 
is too small to be described on any ordinary artificial globe 
by any sensible prominence. In combating the famine 
that recently ravaged Ireland, all the governmental re- 
sources of Great Britain were found to be impotent — no 
amount of wealth being adequate to feed the poor of a na- 
tion, but the resources of the millions who are to be fed, 



216 ADVANTAGES AND DISADVAJiTTAGES 

poor as they individually are at any given moment. Dur- 
ing the late w^ar v^ith Mexico, our National Government, 
by means of a great effort, transported to California a regi- 
ment of soldiers, vv^ith their arms, food, and clothing. 
Contrast this with what a comparatively few of our citi- 
zens have since accomplished personally in the same 
remote region, and you will realize the smallness of gov- 
ernmental efficiency, in contrast with the personal efficiency 
of its subjects. Wise, therefore, is the policy which, by 
means of private incorporations, enables individuals to 
combine their resources, and thus to extend the sphere of 
personal efficiency — the great reservoir of all efficiency. 
We carry the policy so much further than other countries, 
that it may be termed an American principle. The crea- 
tion in other countries of corporations is doled out as gov- 
ernmental favors, while we make it dependent on personal 
volition. 



PART II. 

THE DISADVANTAGES OF PRIVATE CORPORATIONS. 

THE ANTAGONISM BETWEEN A CORPORATION AND ITS 
MANAGERS. 

When a manufactory or bank is managed by its owner, 
self-interest, which is the most conservative instinct of hu- 
man nature, is a guarantee that the management will pro- 
mote the institution's pecuniary productiveness and perma- 
nent prosperity ; but a corporation being an artificial per- 
son, can act only through agents, whose self-interest is 
almost a guarantee that the corporation will be subordi- 
nated to their private interests. This natural antagonism 
between the interest of a corporation and the interest of 



OF PRIVATE CORPORATIONS. 217 

its managers, constitutes the most inveterate danger that 
attends corporations. They are like cheese entrusted to 
the care of rats and mice — well instructed in honesty and 
honor, we may admit, and well reputed, but still rats and 
mice, with •' a law in their members that is at war with the 
law of their minds." The managers, who are practicing 
deeply such an antagonism, own usually as little as they 
decently can of the corporate shares ; to the surprise often 
of the public, after the victimized institution is found to be 
insolvent, and its secrets become revealed. 

THE EFFECT OF THE ANTAGONISM ON OUR MANUFACTURING 
ESTABLISHMENTS. 

The above antagonism is disadvantageous to manufac- 
turing in our country, in contrast with manufacturing in 
England, where the managers are the owners. The diffi- 
culty is almost too radical to be surmounted by any amount 
of protective tariff, the gains accruing from a high tariff 
being almost always nullified by increased salaries of man- 
agers, and prodigal absorptions in other shapes ; hence, 
during our lowest protective tariffs, manufacturing corpora- 
tions become insolvent not more frequently than under our 
highest tariffs — the low tariffs being remedied by dimin- 
ished salaries and increased general economy, as the high 
tariffs are neutralized by opposite consequences. 

THE ANTAGONISM PROMOTES THE CREATION OF CORPORATIONS, 

Still, to the foregoing source of evil we are indebted for 
most of the corporations, railroads and others, whose bene- 
fits we are enjoying ; for, if the regular earnings of a corpo- 
ration constituted all the benefit that was expected from it, 
and the earnings were to be divided among the stockhold- 
ers ratably to each stockholder's ownership of the capital, a 



218 ADV-ANTAGES AND DISADVANTAGES 

person would rarely assume the labor of originating a 
corporation, and of stimulating other persons to become 
corporators. Usually the originators take as little of the 
stock as is compatible with the procurement of other stock- 
holders, and with the procurement by the originators of 
such a position in the management of the corporation as 
they desire to possess. Nor are such expectant benefi- 
ciaries of every newly projected corporation few in number 
— bankers are enticed to become stockholders by the 
promise of deposits ; lawyers, by the promise of fees ; mer- 
chants want commissions and contracts ; men out of employ 
want salaries, and land-owners want to sell, at a good price, 
a location for the contemplated new establishment. Some 
stock is also taken irrespective of any pecuniary gain to be 
derived directly from the corporation, but to promote inci- 
dentally the business prosperity of a neighborhood, village, 
or city. A large portion of the stock of every new corpo- 
ration is thus billeted on persons of all the foregoing de- 
scriptions, and is readily taken by them ; just as commis- 
sioned officers are always readily obtained for any contem- 
plated new regiment of soldiers. But to obtain the rank 
and file, who are to receive nothing but single rations, 
small pay, and plenty of danger, requires in the army and 
in corporations the drum and fife of wary and active re- 
cruiting Serjeants. 

THE CONTROL OVER THE MANAGERS BY THE CORPORATOR. 

Usually a corporation consists of too many corporators 
to be managed by them personally, except by their voting 
annually in the choice of directors ; but the efficienc)'- of 
this control by the stockholder is more theoretical than 
practical. In some cases a single stockholder owns a ma- 
jority of all the votes in a corporation, and thereby pos- 



OF PRIVATE CORPORATIONS. 219 

sesses a legal right to perpetuate his control over it, with 
all the pecuniary incidents resulting therefrom. The early- 
corporations of our State attempted to guard against the 
dangers of so alarming a power, by according to large 
stockholders a smaller ratio of elective efficiency than 
was accorded to smaller stockholders ; but the guard is 
abandoned in modern corporations, from indifference to the 
consequences on the part^^of legislatures, or from an opinion 
that every guard can be easily evaded, and that stockhold- 
ers had better be presented with a known evil, than de- 
luded with a fallacious remedy. 

ANNUAL ELECTIONS ARE USUALLY BUT AN EMPTY CEREMONY. 

But when a corporation is exempt from the influence 
of unwholesomely preponderant stockholders, the corpora- 
tors are strangers to eacli other, and live far apart. Some, 
also, are women, some infants, and not a few are superan- 
nuated rich men, who desire relief from the management 
of their property. Much of the stock is 'held also in sums 
too small to excite in the owners great soHcitude about its 
manageaient ; and should solicitude become excited, the 
stockholder will sell his stock to a more confiding person, 
and at a low price if necessary, as the best practical mode 
in which he can escape apprehended danger ; especially 
after the first election, when the reigning directors are be- 
come banded together to perpetuate their own control, and 
some leader among them (the imperium in imperio), who 
is virtually the corporation (as Napoleon said he was 
France), has carefully gathered up proxies, under the facil- 
ity of knowing the residence of every stockholder, and be- 
ing officially in correspondence w^ith him. So impotent, 
then, become outside stockholders, that an annual election 
for directors is but an empty ceremony, except occasion- 



220 ADVANTAGES AND DISADVANTAGES 

ally, when a reigning board happens to split into rival frag- 
ments, and then a private stockholder finds himself unex- 
pectedly of some consequence, and is solicited to exercise, 
v^hat is often only the barren option of deciding between 
two factions, who are, more or less, warring for his spolia- 
tion. 

THE INEFFICACY OF ALL EXISTING LEGISLATIVE REMEDIES. 

The board's entire practical independence of the stock- 
holders our Legislature has attempted to remedy, by enact- 
ing that every corporation shall, when required, exhibit to 
any stockholder the names of his corporate associates, and 
the number of shares owned by each. Three persons who 
are not directors or officers, must also be inspectors of 
every election ; and every voter may be compelled to deny 
on oath some practices which have ocasionally been em- 
ployed to unduly control elections. But, alas ! law makers 
are not more cunning than law breakers ; hence the wit of 
man can devise no safeguard which the wit of man cannot 
circumvent ; and the above, with other existing legal pro- 
visions of the same purport, are as effective in securing 
directors from displacement, as in aiding the elective con- 
trol of the stockholders. Directors have, accordingly, 
been as secure in their seats since the above enactments as 
they were previously, and quite too secure to enable any 
stockholder to be elected a director, except by the agency 
of the existing board. 

A NEW REMEDY PROPOSED. 

In our political elections, the poll is brought almost to 
the door of every voter, yet hundreds of voters are too list- 
less to step across the threshold and deposit a vote. How 
little, then, need we expect that corporators will vote 
where only one poll is opened, and that may be several 



OF PRIVATE CORPORATIONS. 221 

hundred miles distant. The power to - vote by proxy 
enures, as we have shown above, more to the perpetuation 
of an existing board of directors than to its insecurity. To 
assimilate corporate elections to civil, by numerous polls 
and personal attendance, is a remedy too complex for prac- 
tice ; but no reason exists why the ownership of a given 
amount of stock, say a twelfth part of the whole corporate 
capital, should not constitute the owner a director ; nor 
why several stockholders, who together own a twelfth part 
of the whole, should not possess the power to unite and 
designate some person to be a director — ^just as our State is 
divided into single Assembly districts, and not the whole 
Legislature chosen by a general ticket. These remedies 
would add greatly to the power of stockholders, and hence 
should be desired by all honestly disposed directors ; for, 
'* if he who standeth would take heed lest he fall," he can 
in no way so efficiently strengthen his integrity as by 
diminishing the chances of concealing his indirections. 

THE KIND OF CORPORATIONS MOST PROFITABLE TO STOCKHOLD- 
ERS ARE THOSE WHICH CAN BE LEAST PROFITABLE TO MAN- 
AGERS. 

The dangers which are thus inherent in every corpora- 
tion exhibit themselves practically, with different degrees of 
virulence, in different kinds of business. Among vegetables, 
every species of plant is the prey of some peculiar race of 
insects ; so every species of corporation may supply facili- 
ties for some peculiar depredation. We happen not to be 
conversant with the mysteries of any corporations but 
banking; hence, leaving the specific diseases of other cor- 
porations to be described and treated by persons possessed 
of the requisite information, we shall close this article, and 
take an early opportunity to direct to banks what we have 



222 A*DVANTAGES, ETC., OF PRIVATE CORPORATIONS. 

further to say on the defects of corporations. Banking is, 
however, among the most simple uses to which corporate 
agency is applied,] and hence, probably, among the most 
generally successful ; for, usually, every species of corpora- 
tion is pecuniarily profitable to the stockholders in a degree 
inverse to the extent in which its interests can be decently 
subordinated to the interests of its managers. This is the 
reason why railroad corporations are injured instead of 
being benefited by manufacturing their own cars and lo- 
comotive engines. Every such attempt is encumbered by 
the antagonistic interests of the corporate agents who con- 
duct the manufacturing operations and procure the ma- 
terials, while the profits and savings are hardly ever large 
enough to counterbalance these attendant disadvantages. 

Finally ; the gloomy view thus taken of corporations 
would seem sufficient, if generally believed, to deter every 
prudent man from hazarding his capital in corporate enter- 
prises, when he possesses no motive thereto but to obtain 
a lucrative investment of his capital. Fortunately, how- 
ever, for social progress, corporations are occasionally 
lucrative enough to sustain all the antagonistic disadvan- 
tages of corporate mismanagement, and to leave a sufficient 
overplus to abundantly gratify, and sometimes enrich, even 
the rank and file stockholders. Such instances of exu- 
berant gains in corporations, are like instances of great 
longevity in the life of man. They are frequent enough 
to encourage all men to hope ; hence, new corporations ob- 
tain stockholders ; but such instances are not frequent 
enough to prevent fear — hence, stockholders in any corpo- 
ration are rarely obtained without eflfort. 



THE DUTIES, OMISSIONS, &C., OF BANK DIRECTORS. 228 

THE DUTIES, OMISSIONS, AND MISDOINGS OE EANR DIRECTOKS. 

THE DUTIES OF BANK DIRECTORS. 

In the year 1829, the State of New- York, to protect the 
public against bank insolvencies, originated the Safety 
Fund System of banking, by which every bank subject 
thereto, was compelled to pay, annually, into the State 
Treasury, the half of one per cent, on its capital, till the pay- 
ments should amount to three per cent, thereon ; payments 
were then to be intermitted, till the fund should become ex- 
hausted by losses, when a further three per cent, was to be 
collected by processes similar to the first. Soon after the 
year 1836, several Safety Fund banks became insolvent, ab- 
sorbing, by means of various frauds, not only the existing 
collections of the Safety Fund, but all the annual pay- 
ments that would be made by solvent banks during the 
limit of their corporate existence. 

Influenced by this sad aspect of an experiment which 
had lived down its original many enemies, the State, in the 
year 1838, discontinued the further creation of Safety Fund 
bank charters, and originated what are called Free Banks : 
voluntary associations, whose bank-notes are secured by 
pledges to the State of certain governmental stocks, (State 
and National,) or by such stocks, and by mortgages on un- 
incumbered real estate, in equal parts each. Our purpose 
includes not the comparative merits of these systems, or 
the positive merit of either. So far as the banks of both 
systems are managed by directors, they will be within the 
purview of our remarks ; but the Safety Fund banks are 
subjected by their charters to a Board of twelve or thirteen 
directors, while the Free Banks may adopt any number, or 



224 THE DUTIES, OMISSIONS, AND 

any other mode of government which the proprietors shall 
prefer ; hence the proprietors, in some cases, constitute a 
Democracy, governing personally, and to such the following 
treatise will be inapplicable : — 

A DIRECTOR SHOULD POSSEfciS A GOOD THEORY OF CONDUCT. 

jBank directors usually commence their duties with hon- 
est intentions towards their stockholders and the public. 
The misconduct which may supervene, will proceed from 
temptations incident to their office, and perhaps from the 
absence of well digested notions of the conduct that is 
proper. Some years ago, a person was asked whether he 
would accept the office of director, then vacant in a bank 
of his city. After deliberating, he replied, that as the office 
might result in some benefit to him, he would accept. 
When the answer was reported to the Board, who was to 
fill the vacancy, they refused to appoint him, lest he should 
sit at the Board mousing to catch something beneficial to 
himself, while they wanted a director who would accept 
office to benefit the bank. A man ought to watch his own 
interest, when conducting his own affairs, but when he is 
acting officially, he should lose himself in his public duties. 
We expect a soldier to sacrifice his life, if necessary, to the 
discharge of his duty ; and we should condemn him for pro- 
fessing a less self-denying creed, how much soever our 
knowledge of human falhbility might induce us to pardon 
his short-comings, when death should obstruct his path. 
Fortunately, the performance of bank duties will peril only 
some forbearance from pecuniary acquisitions, and our 
creed ought to be self-denying enough to renounce these, 
instead of avowing them to be the motive of our services ; 
nor is the principle new. The law will not permit a trustee 
to derive any indirect benefit from his trust, or any judge 



MISDOINGS OF BANK DIEECT0I13. 225 

or juror to decide in his own controversies ; and the State 
of New- York has, in its Constitution, consecrated the prin- 
ciple by prohibiting our legislators from regulating their 
own compensation, or even the number of days which shall 
be occupied in legislative duties. In some cities, also, no 
civic officer can become legally interested in any munici- 
pal contract ; and who censures not some recent high offi- 
cers of our National Government, for participating in a 
private claim which they officially aided to adjust and pay ? 
Thus thinking, the President of a large railroad corpora- 
tion of our State refused to supply iron for his road, though 
his'^associq^te Directors, with the complaisance which is as 
vicious as it is common, offered him the contract. In his 
case, no contractor could have been more eligible, but the 
rejecter established a precedent that is more profitable for 
his corporation than the money it would have saved in 
purchasing the iron of him. 

DIRECT COMPENSATION TO THE DIRECTORS IS PURER THAN 
INDIRECT. 

The remuneration of bank directors consists, with us, in 
an indefinite claim for bank loans, and which claim led for- 
merly to so great an absorption of the country banks, 
whose capitals are small, that a law was enacted interdict- 
ing bank directors* from engrossing, directly or indirectly, 
more than a third part of the capital of their respective 
banks ; a quota which is, in some banks, divided equally 
among the directors, irrespective of any business merits of 
the borrower. This mode of compensation, when founded 
on ample security for the borrowed money, may, in small 

* This law, like most other legal regulations of bank directors, was made before the 
existence of banking associations ; hence the directors of such associations are not in- 
cluded therein. 

11 



226 THE DUTIES, OMISSIONS, AND 

banks, constitute a less objectionable mode of remunerating 
directors than any other indirect mode, or than most other 
direct modes. The Legislature, however, seems to have 
contemplated that the motive for accepting a directorship 
shall consist in being a stockholder, and thereby a partici- 
pant in the general profits of the bank. We infer this from 
the requirements of law, that the director of every bank 
shall own at least five hundred dollars of its capital ; di- 
vesting himself of which causes a forfeiture of his office. 
No mode of compensation is so pure as what proceeds thus 
from a ratable interest in the common loss and gains of a 
bank ; and should a negation of other compensation deter 
small stockholders from accepting a bank directorship, large 
stockholders could be substituted, and banks would thereby 
become assimilated to private institutions that are managed 
by their owners — the most efficient and honest of all man- 
agement. A man may, however, properly refuse the office 
of bank director, unless he can obtain for his services a sat- 
isfactory pecuniary compensation ; and banks must com- 
ply with such a requirement, if suitable men are not other- 
wise obtainable ; but such a contingency promises to be 
remote, under the avidity for accidental distinctions by our 
citizens, consequent, probably, on their legal equality. But 
when such a contingency shall occur, a direct compensation 
will generally be purer than any indirect, and a definite 
compensation cheaper than an indefinite ; and usually money 
is the most economical mode of paying for services that are 
not to be deemed honorary. 

NO DIRECTOR SHOULD ASSU3IE ANTAGONISTIC DUTIES. 

The law usually regards bank directors as an entirety 
under the title of a Board. The duties and powers which 
are conferred on the Board by the charters of Safety 



MISDOINGS OF BANK DIRECTORS. 227 

Fund Banks, nnay be classed as legislative, supervisory, and 
appointing. The legislative power consists in creating such 
offices as the business of the bank shall render necessary, 
regulating their duties and salaries; directing the modes in 
which the bank shall be conducted, and generally all that 
pertains to the management of the stock, property, and 
effects of the Corporation. The appointing power consists 
in selecting proper incumbents for the created offices ; 
while the supervisory power is indicated by all the forego- 
ing, and by the ability to dismiss the appointees at pleasure. 
But a man cannot properly supervise himself in the per- 
formance of public services, nor limit and regulate their 
extent, nor fix his compensation therefor ; hence the pow- 
ers of the Board can be exercised efficiently only on per- 
sons who are not members thereof. Nor is the inexpediency 
of uniting in the same person the duties of grantor and 
grantee, master and servant, agent and principal, a contri- 
vance of man ; it proceeds from his organization. No per- 
son can sit at a Board of Directors without observins: that 
agents who are not directors, are supervised more freely 
than agents who are directors. A practical admission of 
this is evinced by some discount boards, who, in deciding 
on paper offered by directors, vote by a species of ballot, 
while in other boards, the offered notes are passed under 
the table, from seat to seat ; and a note is deemed reject- 
ed, if, in its transit, some director has secretly folded down 
one of its corners. Had the United States Bank been su- 
pervised by a board disconnected from executive duties, it 
would not have permitted its chief officer to persevere in 
the measures which ultimately ruined the Corporation, 
though its capital was thirty-five millions of dollars. Even 
the separation of a Legislature into two chambers, checks 
the esprit du corps and pride of opinion, which would urge 



228 » THE DUTIES, OMISSIONS, AND 

one chamber into extremes, with no means of extrication 
from a false position. A separation operates Hke the break 
of continuity in an electric telegraph, arresting a common 
sympathy, passion, or prejudice, which, in a single cham- 
ber, rushes irresistibly to its object. Still, in many banks, 
(the Bank of England included,) the President (entitled 
Governor, in the Bank of England) is the chief executive 
officer, as well as head of the legislative department. The 
Bank of England is, however, controlled by twenty-four 
directors, the largeness of which number naturally miti- 
gates the influence of the members individually, and hence 
diminishes ratably the objection against its executive organ- 
ization. Such an organization may operate well where the 
Board consists of a small number of members, yet the good 
is not a consequence of the organization, but in despite 
thereof; for whatever weakens the power of supervision, 
must diminish its benefits. The joint stock banks of Eng- 
land are all controlled by officers called Managers, and who 
are not members of the Board, though they sit thereat ex 
officio, for mutual explanation and instruction. 

THE EXECUTIVE SHOULD BE SINGLE, NOT MULTIFORM. 

That the Board should legislate, supervise, and appoint, 
but not execute, occasioned, probably, the exclusion from 
the directorship, that early prevailed and widely continues, 
of the person who occupies the office of cashier, and who, 
with us, was once almost universally the chief executive 
bank officer. But the executive power, however located, 
should centre in only one person ; a divided responsibility 
creating necessarily a divided vigilance. Thirteen men 
acting as an executive will not produce the vigilance of 
one man multiplied by thirteen : but rather the vigilance of 
one man divided by thirteen. The inspection of a picture 



' MISDOINGS OF BANK DIRECTORS. 229 

by ten thousand promiscuous men will not detect as many 
imperfections in it as the scrutiny of one person, intent on 
discovering to the extent of his utmost vigilance ; hence 
large assemblies refer every investigation to a small com- 
mittee, the chairman of which is expected to assume the 
responsibility of the examination, while the other members 
are more supervisors than actors. Here again, as in most 
other modes which business assumes, by chance apparently, 
our organization dictates the mode. When, therefore, we 
want an army of the highest efficiency, we possess no al- 
ternative but to entrust it to a single commander-in-chief; 
and if we want a bank of the highest efficiency as respects 
safety and productiveness, we must entrust it to a single 
executive, under any title we please, but to one man, who 
will make the bank the focus of his aspirations, and know 
that on his prudence and success will depend the character 
he most affects, and the duration of his office, with all its 
valued associations and consequences. 

APPOINTMENT OF THE EXECUTIVE. 

If the proposed organization is the best that can be devi- 
sed for a bank, the magnitude of power to be delegated is no 
proper argument against its delegation, but only a motive 
of prudence in selecting the delegate. A man of known skill 
and established fidelity is not always procurable for the pro- 
posed duties, especially by small banks that cannot render 
available a breach of the Tenth Commandment, by enticing 
from his post the skillful officer of some other Board. But, 
providentially, the world is not so dependent on a few emi- 
nent men, as their self-love and our idolatry may believe. 
Every well organized person possesses an aptitude to grow 
to the stature of the station in which circumstances may 
place him ; and some of the most successful bankers of our 



230 

State acquired their skill after they became bankers. The 
like principle is discoverable in all occupations, the highest 
not excepted. Few of our judges, generals, diplomatists, 
legislators, or civil executives, were accomplished in their 
vocation before they became invested therewith. Skill is 
consequent to station and its excitement, though a vulgar 
error expecis (what is impossible) that official dexterity and 
competence should be possessed in advance. 

THE POWER TO BE GRANTED TO THE EXECUTIVE. 

On the chief executive should be devolved the responsi- 
bility of providing funds to meet the exigencies of the bank ; 
hence he is entitled to dictate whether loans shall be grant- 
ed or v^ithheld, and the length of credit that shall be ac- 
corded to the borrowers respectively. With him rests also 
a knowledge of the banking value of each customer ; he 
should therefore be permitted to select from applicants the 
persons to whom alone loans shall be granted. The respon- 
sibility should also be cast on him of making the bank pe- 
cuniarily profitable to the stockholder : hence he will be 
stimulated to obtain good accounts, and extend business to 
the utmost capacity that his judgment will justify. On his 
untiring vigilance should be reposed the safety of the capi- 
tal ; hence no loans should be granted with whose security 
he is dissatisfied, nor any except those with which he is 
satisfied — even the improper negation of a loan being usual- 
ly a small evil to the bank, how important soever it may be 
to the proposer. The Bank of England, with a capital of 
about (including surplus) $90,000,000, entrusts the loaning 
thereof to the Governor alone. He has under him a sub- 
governor, selected from the directors, while an executive 
committee, designated by the board, may be consulted by 
him ; but the committee employs itself in digesting matter 



MISDOINGS OF BANK DIRECTORS. 231 

for the action of the court of directors, rather than in clog- 
ging file proceedings and diminishing the discretion of the 
Governor. All the joint-stock banks of England are organ- 
ized with a like self-dependino; executive, under the name 
of General Manager ; and a bank organized thus to grant 
loans at all times during its business hours, will present a 
great inducement to customers over a bank whose discounts 
are accorded at only stated days, and after a protracted 
deliberation by directors — loans being often useful only 
when obtained promptly. Even the due protesting of dis- 
honored paper, and notifying of endorsers — the enforce- 
ment- of payment, or the obtainment of security on debts 
^ which prove to be unsafe, will all wholesomely fall under 
the control of the chief executive, by reason that the vigil- 
ance of one person can control them better than a divided 
vigilance ; and that the debts having come into the bank by 
his agency, his self-love is interested in their collectability. 
He must feel a like responsibility against losses by forgery, 
over-drawn accounts, the depredation of burglars, and the 
peculation of subalterns. To secure, in the highest degree, 
his vigilance in these particulars, he should be entrusted 
with the selection of all subordinate agents, even of the no- 
tary and attorneys. At least none should be appointed or 
retained with whom he is not satisfied. His self-respect 
cannot be too much fostered by the Board, and no measure 
should be enforced, and no loans granted, which can wound 
his sensibility, or diminish his influence with his subordi- 
nates or the customers of the bank. The more he can 
thus be brought to identify himself with the bank, the more 
the bank will be exempt from the disadvantages which 
make corporations contrast unfavorably with private estab* 
lishments ; and which a proverb alludes to in saying that 
" what is everybody's business is nobody's." So great is the 



232 THE DUTIES, OMISSIONS, AND 

assimilation to their bank which some managers attain, that 
a poignancy of solicitude in relation to the debts of the 
bank, the preservation of its credit, and the productiveness 
of its capital, becomes the greatest evil of their position ; 
especially when they are predisposed to morbid nervous- 
ness, which, with disease of the heart, their position induces 
and fosters. Such a man w'ill obtain from his Board all the 
information it can yield in relation to the pecuniary respon- 
sibility of his dealers ; and the directors should give him 
their opinion— not mandatory, w^hich would relieve his re» 
sponsibility, but to inform his judgment ; though he will soon 
discover that his only safe guide will consist of his feelings, 
founded on personal observations often too subtle to be 
described, much less enumerated. 

HIS SALARY. 

His salary should be liberal, for nature will not otherwise 
produce the activity of mind and body that is essential to 
his duties. Besides, he must engage in no private business, 
and will possess neither leisure nor taste to attend minutely 
to his domestic expenses. No salary can equal in value the 
devotion of such an officer ; still extravagance is unwise as 
an example, and unnecessary as a stimulant. The more 
capable the officer, the more he will appreciate money ; 
and instances are frequent where bank services of the most 
valuable kind are accorded on salaries that would be 
deemed unsatisfactorily small by officers whose habits are 
less suited for the station. 

THE SUPERVfSTON OF THE BOARD OVER THE MANAGER. 

The duties of a board will rather commence than end 
with the appointment of its executive. Their proper 
duties are supervisory. Nature aids the discharge of such 
duties when the supervisor is distinct from the supervised ; 



MISDOINGS OF BANK DIRECTORS. 233 

r 

indeed, one of the most difficult tasks of a supervisor con- 
sists in restraining the undue captiousness that is natural 
to the position. The President of the Bank, as head of the 
corporation, cannot perform too efficiently supervisory 
duties, and he may well be entitled to a pecuniary com- 
pensation therefor. He should deem them under his special 
charge, but not to supersede therein the modified duties of 
the other directors. Supervision over the Manager's offi- 
cial proceedings v^ill be as salutary to him as proper to the 
Board. Darkness is proverbially unfavorable to purity, 
but only by reason of the concealment it creates ; every 
other means of concealment is equally productive of im- 
purity. A man can easily reconcile to his judgment and 
conscience what cannot be reconciled to disinterested 
supervisors ; hence, if an officer knows so little of human 
nature as to deem supervision offensive, he is unfit to be 
trusted. That the supervision may be full, it must be sys- 
tematic. Every director will usually attend meetings of the 
Board, in a degree inverse to their frequency; but twice a 
week, or certainly once, where the bank is not very small, 
will be as short as is compatible with a due inspection, 
singly, of the loans, in some regular order, that may have 
been granted by the Manager, since the last session of the 
Board. The directors will thus learn individually, whether 
the power to make loans has been prudently exercised, and 
he will learn the opinion which any of the Board may ex- 
press in relation to the borrowers or their sureties, espe- 
cially in cities where borrowers are generally known to the 
Board ; and a Manager may advantageously defer to it the 
consummation of many loans in relation to which his own 
information is questionable, or about which he desires time 
to deliberate. Such a deferring will often constitute a less 
offensive mode of avoiding an objectionable discount, than 

11* 



234 ■ THE DUTIES, OMISSIONS, AND 

a direct and personal refusal ; though truly the kindest 
act a banker can perform, next to granting a loan, is to 
promptly inform an apphcant that he cannot succeed, when 
the banker knows the loan will not be granted. 

SUPERVISION IN RELATION TO BUSINESS PRINCIPLES. 

The supervision of the Board must be as comprehensive 
as the powers of the Manager. The revision of loans will 
enable the Board to ascertain, not merely the solvency of 
the bank's assets, but whether its business is conducted 
without partiality, or unwholesome bias of any kind. 
Nearly every undue partiality possesses concomitants that 
may lead to its detection — for instance, an unusual laxity 
of security, or length of credit ; with unusual frequency of 
renewals in a direct form, or an indirect, so as to screen 
the operations. A manager, properly sensitive of his repu- 
tation, and properly diffident of his natural infirmities, 
will be reluctant to grant loans to his relatives or special 
friends, and never to himself, or any person with whose 
business operations he is connected. To enable directors 
to judge of these particulars, a regular attendance at the 
stated meetings is necessary ; but memory alone must not 
be relied on, except to suggest queries, which should always 
be capable of solution by proper books and indexes, that 
must be within reach of the directors, who should habitu- 
ally inspect the books, that the practice may, in no case, 
seem an invidious peculiarity. In all scrutinies, however, 
the directors should remember that in mere judgment and 
expediency they may differ from the Manager, and he may 
still be right ; for banking constitutes his business, while 
to them it is an incidental occupation. Lenity is proper 
even to his undoubted errors, when they are of a nature 
which experience may correct ; but time will only inveter- 



MISDOINGS OF BANK DIRECTORSw 235 

ate bad intentions, and their first unequivocal appearance 
should produce an unrelenting forfeiture of his office. 

SUPERVISION OVER LIABILITIES AND RESOURCES. 

The Board must understand the liabilities of the bank to 
its depositors, bank-note holders, and other creditors ; also 
the funds of the bank, and its available resources ; so as to 
judge how far the honor of the bank is safe in the care of 
its Manager. The characters of depositors and borrowers are 
also proper subjects of general scrutiny in the Board, by 
reason that the reputation of a bank is inferrable from the 
reputation of its dealers ; — not that disreputable people 
should be rejected as depositors, but a bank is not an 
exception to the proverb which speaks of " birds of a 
feather ;" and when the customers of a bank are generally 
respectable in their character and business, we may be sure 
that the management of the bank is at least ostensibly- 
moral and mercantile. 

SUPERVISION FOUNDED ON RESULTS. 

The '' ticklers" of a bank are books which show in detail 
the debts due prospectively to a bank, and the days of pay- 
ment. The aggregate footing of the ticklers will accord- 
ingly exhibit the amount of loans not yet matured, and in- 
ductively the amount that is past due. The information 
which relates to the amount past due is often given reluct- 
antly, but a knowledge of it is vastly important in the 
proper supervision of the bank ; and when tested by the 
ticklers, the information cannot well be deceptions, or 
evaded. In knowing the amount of past-due loans, the 
Board can pretty accurately conjecture the character of the 
bank's customers. Such loans should be satisfactorily ex- 
plained by the Manager, and the means he is taking in 



236 THE DUTIES, OMISSIONS, AND 

their collection. The like may be said of over-drafts,"^ 
which are rarely permitted by American bankers, though 
in England they seem to constitute one of the regular modes 
of advancing money to customers. Whether they shall be 
permitted is within the proper discretion of the Board ; and 
should they occur inadvertently, the occurrence ought to 
be manifested to the Board. An exemiption from losses is 
impracticable in long-continued operations ; yet all grades 
of intellect are procurable ; hence the retention of an 
officer is unwise when his results are unsatisfactory. Every 
man can adduce excuses which no persons may be able to 
controvert ; but when miscarriages are frequent or import- 
ant, the Board should assume that something wrong exists 
and eludes detection, rather than that nature deviates from 
her accustomed processes, making vigilance unsafe, and 
skill unprofitable. The recent '* Eochester Knockings," 
which some people endeavor to unravel, by reason that 
they deem the noises supernatural, if they cannot be other- 
wise explained, saner intellects pass without scrutiny, be- 
ing confident that the inexplicability of the knockings can 
prove only that the shrewdness of observers is baffled by 
the artifice of the exhibiters. 

SUPERVISION AGAINST FRAUDS. 

The examination of vaults, and counting of money, rarely 
reveal defalcations, till the defaulter no longer endeavors to 
conceal his delinquencies. The counting is not pernicious, 
if the Board choose to amuse their vigilance therewith ; 
but we have not attempted to designate modes in which 
frauds are detectable, the ingenuity of concealment being 
naturally as great as the ingenuity of detection. Besides, 
the detection of intestine frauds requires a greater famili- 

* A list of all the credits due to individual depositors will, by its aggregate amount, show 
inductively the amount of over-drafts. 



MISDOINGS OF BANK DIRECTORS. 237 

arity with banking accounts, and a nnore laborious inspec- 
tion of bank-books, than can ordinarily be expected of 
bank directors. For the detection of frauds, therefore, 
the best practical reliance is a supervision, in the way we 
have indicated, of the bank's business, and a familiar ob- 
servation of the general conduct, habits, and expenses of 
the Manager, as well as of all the subordinate officers ; the 
latter, however, are more especially within the duties of 
the Manager. The ruin of a bank by fraud commences 
usually in the personal embarrassment of the delinquent, 
contracted by improper self-indulgencies, or the assumption 
of secret hazards. Men rarely plunder till their conduct is 
otherwise disorganized, external symptoms of which ob- 
servant directors may discover. A bank officer, therefore 
(and the higher his official position the more urgent the 
rule), who will not keep disengaged from all suretyship, and 
business that may render him pecuniarily necessitous, is as 
unfit to be entrusted with a bank, as a nurse who frequents 
small-pox hospitals is unfit to be trusted with unvaccinated 
children. In menageries, animals are kept peaceful by 
preventing the cravings of hunger ; bank executives require 
a similar assuasive; not by being glutted with great sal- 
aries, but by preserving themselves from expenditures un- 
suited to their income, and from pecuniary liabilities. A 
bank Manager of undoubted wealth, presents therein the 
best attainable guarantee against misconduct, and is en- 
titled to greater freedom of action in his personal transac- 
tions, than officers of ordinary circumstances ; still, we will 
venture the advice, that when a man wants to be much 
more than a bank Manager, especially when he wants to 
employ much more than his own funds, he had better cease 
from occupying a station which he is too ambitious, or too 
avaricious, to fill, under the restraints which experience 
show are alone safe. 



CHAPTER III. 

OF SUMPTUARY LEGISLATION. 



THE EXCISE LICENSE QUESTION* 

Our criminal jurisprudence has long verified the proverb 
that the law is like a cobweb, which catches small flies but 
permits large ones to escape. When, however, great 
rogues elude justice, the defect heretofore has been an eva- 
sion of law, but the statute which prohibits licenses, legal- 
izes the principle ; for, while five gallons of rum may be 
sold with impunity, the sale of a gill is an indictable offence. 
The practical operation of the law is as discriminative as its 
letter, in favor of conspicuous offenders ; for, at all public 
places of fashionable regalement, where a coarse dram is 
refused to a laboring man, his luxurious neighbor is un- 
stinted in champaigne. And lest such inequalities should 
not be sufficient, all the inhabitants of New- York City may 
sin with drink as their appetites shall dictate. 

But these defects are to be corrected. The public stom- 
ach, like the natural, must be familiarized by degrees to 
what it naturally abhors ; and nothing can better elucidate 
the extent to which it may thus be familiarized, than the 
gradual advance of our Temperance reformers from the 
blandest moral suasion, as their only authorized corrective 

* Published in 1846. 



THE EXCISE LICENSE QUESTION. 239 

of intemperance, to the coercion by indictment, fine, and 
imprisonment, with which they have procured themselves 
to be now armed. These powers will only whet the appe- 
tite for more ; but Providence, which, doubtless for good 
ends, has implanted in every man a tyranny that would, by 
sword and faggot, if permissible, subject the world to his 
peculiar notions, has implanted in every other man a 
resistance graduated not simply by the assault, but inveter- 
ated by revenge ; hence the blood of martyrs has ever 
been deemed the seed of the Church — a result not predica- 
ble of men because they happen to be Christians, but pre- 
dicable of Christians because they are men. By virtue of 
this principle, the vote in favor of coercion was scarcely 
announced last spring, when our streets suddenly exhibited 
men reeling with intemperance, the restraints of decency 
giving way in them to the desire of showing a defiance of 
coercion. Even in China, where coercion can inflict 
death, and where the coercion is directed against the use of 
opium, it is defeated by man's inherent sense that every man 
is his own keeper in what is personal to himself. Persua- 
sion is twice blessed, for it blesses the receiver and the giver ; 
but coercion is twice cursed. Its efiect on the coerced may 
be seen in the above examples, and in the exasperation 
which has, in many cases, induced tavern-keepers in our 
lonely highways to refuse a drink of water to the thirsty 
horses of inoffensive travelers; and in the conversion, even 
in our own city, of some of our most peaceful inhabitants 
into indicted litigants of our criminal courts ; verifying 
thus the Scriptures, that oppression will make even wise 
men mad. The effect on the coercive philanthropists is 
not less corrupting, for we saw them at the polls browbeat- 
ing opponents with all the mad appliances of vulgar parti- 
sanship ; and we have seen them since, systematizing the 



240 THE EXCISE LICENSE QUESTION. 

employment of informers, and hunting down heretics with 
a rancor which, how much soever they may deceive them- 
selves as to their motives, proves that they are proselyting 
with the spirit of Mahomet. 

But were the influences of coercion as assuasive to the 
coerced as it is exasperating, and as benign to the coercers 
as it is malignant, the demerits of the process would still 
condemn it, with all men who would attain good ends by 
only good means ; and especially by all who love liberty 
even more than they love temperance. If three men 
were shipwrecked on an uninhabited island, any two of 
them who should agree upon the formation of laws, would 
possess a sufficiency of physical preponderance to devote to 
their services the labor of the third. That the majority 
should rule, accords with the theory of our Government, 
but an exercise of power like the above, all feel would be 
wrong ; hence to make a law just, something more is neces- 
sary than the sanction of a majority ; and if we inquire into 
the deficiency in the above case we shall find that the major- 
ity imposed burdens on the minority, from which the major- 
ity were themselves to be exempt ; and thus the voters at 
our late election, who possessed no inclination for taverns and 
groceries, voted restraints on men of opposite inclinations. 
The world is familiar with attempts by majorities to thus 
extend their control beyond its just limits ; hence the Con- 
stitution of our State prohibits a majority from coercing 
the minority in matters of religious preferences, as formerly 
in England, where Episcopalians excluded from office all 
who preferred other forms of worship ; and as once in 
France, where infidels prohibited preaching and abolished 
Sabbaths. The prohibition of our Constitution is just, not 
because it relates to religion, but because in matters merely 
persona], no aggregate of preferences can rightfully con- 



THE EXCISE LICENSE QUESTION. 24l 

trol men of different preferences. The travelers in a stage 
coach will often permit the majority to decide whether the 
coach shall travel all night, or tarry by the way ; but any 
man would feel outraged should the majority decide what 
he shall be permitted to eat. The Turks deem wine dele- 
terious, and in addition, its use is irreligious ; but even 
Turkish despotism has never prohibited the sale of wine to 
men of a different faitb. The United States Constitution, 
also, attempts to restrain majorities to matters of general 
concernment; hence all direct taxes are prohibited, ex- 
cept where the taxes are to be borne by the majority ra- 
tably with the minority. In our license restraints, the tax 
of self-denial is not borne by the majority ratably with the 
minority ; but all the self-denial is borne by the minority. 
Looking at these constitutional provisions as the elucida- 
tion of a principle, may we not infer therefrom, that instead 
of deeming the restraint of excise licenses justified by the 
absence of any direct constitutional prohibition against 
such restraints, we ought to deem the restraints proof con- 
clusive that our new Constitution should prohibit the exer- 
cise of such a power. The whole system of excise should 
be abolished. It is a miserable attempt to extort money by 
the sale of special privileges." Kay, worse, the privilege is 
not the purchase of any right, but the purchased redress of 
a public wrong, the license merely remitting a person into 
the pursuit of his own happiness in his own chosen way, 
which is one of the inalienable rights of man, our own De- 
claration of Independence being the judge. The Bible pro- 
hibited the Jews from boiling a kid in its mother's milk. 
We should imitate this benevolence, and not permit the be- 
neficent majority principle of our Government to be pervert- 
ed into an instrument of personal oppression. The out- 
casts, whose depredations on society have consigned them 



242 THE MAI]S"E LIQUOR LAW. 

to our prisons, are hopelessly controlled as to what they 
shall eat, and what they may drink, and how they may em- 
ploy the energies with which God has endued them ; but 
imagination can conceive no more perfect liberty than is 
permitted us by the theory of our Government, Shall we 
perfect its practice to the extent of the theory, or shall we 
permit enthusiasts to erect among us a dietetic tyranny ? 
The question is no longer speculative ; it must be answered 
by our actions, and it should be answered understandingly ; 
because, though we may personally care nothing for the 
restraints of the license law, we ought to care for the pres- 
ervation of all our liberties. 



THE MAINE LIQUOE LAW.* 

The capacity of man for self-government is the great 
experiment which all our States are trying, and its success 
rests on the ability of every man to govern himself. Would 
you make a son trustworthy, trust him ; would you make 
him him capable of taking care of himself, leave him to 
make experiments for himself; and what is thus wise in a 
family is wise in a nation. When we allow every man to 
vote, we necessarily admit many who exercise the power 
unskillfully ; but all become thereby educated as rulers, and 
to the influence of universal suffrage, our country, despite 
the opposition of the exclusively wise, extends to the Paci- 
fic Ocean and the Gulf of Mexico, and twenty-seven mil- 
lions of human beings fill the expanse with railroads, 
churches, printing presses and happy families. 

* Published iu 1854. 



THE MAINE LIQUOR LAW. 243 

So when our States abolished standing armies and an 
armed police, we necessarily withdrew restraints from un- 
worthy individuals, but we thereby educated law-abiding 
characteristics in all, till an unarmed constable is become 
more potent with us than a file of soldiers in countries 
which rely for good order on physical coercion. In no 
country is the chastity of women thrown so entirely on 
their own integrity as with us, and in no other country 
are the purities of the domestic relations so rarely violated. 
Let, then, no impatience of any existing evil interfere with 
self-control which already has advanced temperance from 
the condition of a suppliant to the potency of a threatening 
aggressor. We fill our country with schools, academies 
and colleges, but beyond the worth of all literature is the 
practical art of self-restraint which can be taught only by 
the license to choose between good and evil. The inhabi- 
tants of France are the best intellectually educated people 
of Europe ; still so little has their self-control been culti- 
vated, that the freedom of the press is found incompatible 
with social order, while we, from the effect of habit, con- 
tinue calm amid personal criminations of a press wholly 
unrestrained. 

Nothing is more instructive than to note the progress of 
foreigners in the art of self-control, under the influence of 
our liberty. They are exasperated often in our cities by 
over-zealous men, who abuse the public highway by 
preaching opinions that are designedly obnoxious. Citi- 
zens accustomed to the annoyance, have learned to discip- 
line their conduct thereto, while newly-arrived emigrants 
resent the injury by personal violence. One of these 
preachers has lately been twice imprisoned ; but we had 
better tolerate the nuisance as a practical discipline in the 
art of self-control. 



244 THE MAINE LIQUOR LAW. 

Such are some of the principles by which the Maine law 
question should be judged. No person objects to the pun- 
ishment of a man for any injury his drunkenness may in- 
flict on others, but objections exi?t against placing a straight 
jacket on a sane man in advance of a possible future mad- 
ness. When a modified Maine law was formerly enacted, 
drunkenness exhibited itsself beyond all precedent, stolen 
fruit being proverbially sweet, and persecution ever beget- 
ting proselytes. 

Our State has had several successive Constitutions, and 
they evince our gradual progress in the science of self- 
government. Our Constitution of 1846 exceeds all its pre- 
decessors in unshackling personal conduct. Men can 
incorporate themselves to establish banks, insurance com- 
panies, railroads, &c., while formerly corporate powers 
were deemed too dangerous to be entrusted to private 
volition. Prohibitions are now shifted on to the law-mak- 
ers. They cannot grant special charters, or pass any law 
that shall create *' offices for the weighing, gauging, mea- 
suring, culling or inspecting any merchandise, produce, 
manufacture, or commodity whatever ;" and thus each man 
must rely for personal protection on cultivating the facul- 
ties which God has given him. Even the care of his own 
soul is for the first time left to his unbiased discretion, no 
person being any longer punished for infidelity by being 
" rendered incompetent as a witness on account of his 
opinions on matters of religious belief." 

The Bible says that a man would be injured, should he 
gain the whole world and lose thereby his soul. Most of 
us believe this, still no man demands now legislative inter- 
ference with religious faith. Indeed, we are accustomed 
to compare, with no little vain glory, our liberty of con- 
science with the sectarian intolerance of all other nations: 



THE MAINE LIQUOR LAW. 245 

and petitions have been presented to Congress, that our 
Government should compel foreign countries to give to our 
citizens abroad the religious privileges they possess at 
home. If, then, each of us is permitted to jeopard his own 
soul out of respect to personal freedom, in cases, too, of 
atheism, deism, and blasphemy, which hazard his eternal 
reprobation and the involvement therein of his children, 
we cannot consistently restrain personal freedom where 
the evils are only the liability of using to excess intoxicat- 
ing drinks. 

We greatly mistake the Maine law question when we 
look only at its effects on drunkenness. Good and evil 
are so interwoven, that every liberty must be condemned 
if tested by the evil which it permits. We mistake it 
equally when we test it by its effects on hop-growers, 
grain-growers, cattle-dealers, butchers, shopkeepers, for- 
warders, teamsters, coopers, real estate, &c. Underlying 
all these is the greater question of self-government ; not one 
man governing another, but each man governing himself. 
Even Adam was permitted the liberty of eating the forbid- 
den fruit, for barren indeed would have been his total 
abstinence had it depended on coercion. The people can 
express their views explicitly on the subject at the ap- 
proaching election. The Maine Law is the only practical 
issue the election is to decide, and let no fog which politi- 
cians may raise, cause the Arctic of the day to be obscured 
and run down. 



CHAPTER IV. 



OF PUBLIC IMPROVEMENT 



THE ALTEENATIYE OE EOEEOWING DISADVANTAGEOUSLY, OR 
SUSPENDING THE PUBLIC WOEKS.* 

The recent Annual Report of the Canal Commission- 
ers shows that the State has expended towards the con- 
struction of the Black River Canal and Erie Canal Feeder, 
$1,670,097 67. 

To complete the said Canal and Feeder requires a further 
expenditure of $689,000; which sum the State can obtain 
if it will sell 5 per cent, stock at 74 cents on the dollar. 
But this is deemed too low ; hence the State proposes to 
delay the completion of the Canal until stock shall sell for 
a better price. Let us examine whether the State can gain 
by such a delay. 

Nine hundred and thirty-onejthousand and eighty-one dol 
lars of State 5 per cent, stock, if sold at the present market 
price, 74 cents on the dollar, will bring the sum required 
to complete the Canal and Feeder, say $689,000. 

If the State shall delay the completion a year, the State 
will lose by the delay, unless the stock shall advance in 
price enough to pay the year's interest on $1,670,097 67 
already expended. This calculation is founded on the pre- 
sumption that the work, when completed and in operation, 
will earn enough to pay the interest on the cost of its con- 

* Published in 1842. 



BORROWING DISADVANTAGEOUSLY, ETC. 247 

struction ; and that it will earn nothing till it is completed. 
The year's interest on $1,670,097 67 at 6 per cent, is 
$100,205 86. To cover this, stock must advance in price 
ten cents seven and a half mills on every dollar ; and 
therefore must sell at the end of the year for 84| cents on 
the dollar, or the delay will he a pecuniary loss to the 
State. 

A like calculation will show, that to avoid loss by a 
delay of two years, the stock must then bring in market 95-^ 
cents on the dollar ; on a delay of three years it must bring 
106i cents on the dollar ; on a delay of four years it must 
bring 1 17 cents on the dollar ; and on the delay of five years 
it must bring 127| cents on the dollar. The probability 
which exists for any of these advances in price, must de- 
termine whether the delay is prudent or imprudent. 

A like calculation is applicable to the Genesee Valley 
Canal, on which the State has expended 83,102,932 — leav- 
ing unexpended, and necessary to complete the canal, 
81,647,373. To compensate for the postponement, stock 
must then bring. 

One year, 8H 

Two years, 89 

Three years, 96^ 

Four years, 104 

Five years, 111^ 

Towards the enlargement of the Erie Canal, the State 
has expended 810,710,781, leaving unexpended, and neces- 
sary to complete the enlargement, 812,692,082. Pursuing 
towards this undertaking the same reasoning that we ap- 
plied to the others, the result is as follows : to compensate 
for a postponement, the stock must then bring in market, 

One year, , 77f 

Two years, 81i 

Three years, 85 

Four years, 88f 

Five years,... 92i 



248 

These calculations are only approximations towards the 
truth, being modifiable by several circumstances ; as, for 
instance, 52 miles of the Genesee Valley Canal will be 
navigable the approaching season, and hence be somewhat 
productive. And some of the expenditures on the Erie 
Canal enlargement would have been incurred as repairs, 
had no enlargement been contemplated. To compensate, 
however, for these palliatives, no charge is made in the fore- 
going calculations for interest on the interest money that 
will be annually paid, and that has been paid. Nor is any 
charge made for interest on the money that must be paid 
by the State on outstanding contracts, which amount to 
$4,268,062 49, for work not yet performed, but which the 
State will be compelled in justice to let the contractors 
perform, or compensate them for if not performed. The 
work which is already completed, but useless till the whole 
improvement is finished, will require also an annual expen- 
diture ia repairs, or will produce an annual loss in decay ; 
though when the canals are completed we may reasonably 
suppose that they will earn these expenses, as well as the 
interest on the money expended in their construction. 

But the foregoing calculations, however defective, give 
prominence to a principle, which has never been very dis- 
tinctly presented to the public, but which ought to be consid- 
ered before we make the present low price of State stocks a 
reason for postponing the completion of our public works ; 
especially as we possess resources for their completion with- 
out burthening the people at present with taxation, and 
probably without ever burthening them or their posterity, 
unless they shall prefer to be thus burthened ; like the 
customers of a celebrated Boston dentist, who, he affirmed, 
had their teeth extracted by him for the pleasure of the 
operation. 



THE ALTERNATIVE OF DEBT OR TAXATION. 249 



THE ALTEEMTIVE OE DEBT OE TAXATION.* 

Before we can decide on the m3rits of a doctor's pre- 
scription, we must ascertain the malady for which he pre- 
scribes. This rule is applicable to the recent letter of Al- 
bert Gallatin and others, which has just been presented to 
our State Legislature in reference to our State debts. The 
signers are gentlemen of high character and great experi- 
ence as bankers, and the writer of the present article finds 
in their communication but little to gainsay. Their com- 
munication relates substantially to their inability to grant 
the State further loans, and their anxiety to be relieved 
from those already granted, and which amounted on the 
1st of January last, to $742,840 66. 

Such being the disease, the remedy which the gentlemen 
propose sufficiently comports with their financial celebrity. 
No doubt a cessation of all further issues of State stock, 
combined with a State tax to precipitate the payment of 
existing stock, will cause State stock to advance in price, 
and benefit holders who have purchased the stock at a low 
price, or injudiciously procured it while it was high. 

But the question which the Legislature must decide is 
broader than the above. So long as the State duly pays 
the interest on its stock, the State performs all that it is 
bound to perform, both legally and morally, till the princi- 
pal of the stock is payable; and stock whose payment is 
dependent on the discretion of the Commissioners of the 
Canal Fund, after any given date, (as say the year 1845,) 
is not payable till such discretion shall direct its payment. 
The fall in price which makes the holders of stock anxious 
that the State should waive its said discretion, is no good 

* Published in 1842. 

12 



250 THE ALTEENATIVE OF DEBT OR TAXATION. 

reason for the waiver. With the floating market price of 
stock, the State has properly no connection. It is an inci- 
dent which those assume who purchase stock. 

The true question, therefore, for the State to decide, in 
the levying of a tax and the suspension of public works, is 
not whether those measures will enhance the price of stocks, 
and thus benefit stockholders ; but, whether the tax and 
suspension of works will promote the interests of the whole 
people ? 

The four New- York financiers admit that the present 
price (February 28, 1842,) of 5 per cent, stock is 77 per 
cent. To thus obtain loans is to pay about six and a half 
per cent, interest on the money borrowed. Any private 
borrower would deem such a rate moderate, and it seems 
to present no unreasonable obstacle to the further prosecu- 
tion of our public works ; much less to the creation of new 
stock for the discharge of existing pecuniary engagements, 
in preference to their discharge by a State tax — to pay 
which, the people will have to borrow money at seven per 
cent, interest. Shall the State compel the citizens to bor- 
row at seven per cent., to shield itself against borrowing 
at six and a half? 

The only justifiable occasion for a State tax in the pros- 
ecution of public works is, when the State cannot borrow 
on as good terms as the people, or when the income of the 
State shall be insufiicient to pay the interest on its debts. 
Such a contingency exists not at present, though it may 
occur if the State shall proceed manfully in the prosecution 
of its great works ; and when the contingency shall occur, 
the people possess patriotism enough, and sense enough, to 
bear the burden. The constituency of our country have 
ever been wiser than their legislature imagines. They are 
now, and for a long course of time have been, far in ad- 



THE ALTERNATIVE OF A SUSPENSION, ETC. 251 

vance of their representatives, both in patriotism and spirit. 
They are now, and for a long time have been, unable to 
obtain representatives who will carry forward their wishes, 
or second their love of enterprise. How long this is to 
continue seems beyond the reach of conjecture, for our 
elections, State and National, afford us no alternative but 
to select representatives from conflicting partisans ; who, 
when elected, and of whatever creed, are still the represen- 
tatives of a party, with all its petty interests, rather than 
the representatives of a great people, whose public inter- 
ests are one and indivisible. 



THE ALTEENATIVE OE A SUSPENSION OF BiPEOVEMENTS OR 
AN INCEEASE OE DEBT * 

At present, when no alternative is presented to the peo- 
ple but an increase of our State debt or a cessation of our 
internal improvements, ought we not to inquire soberly 
into the nature of the alternative ? 

Five per cent, stock will now sell at about eighty dollars 
for a hundred dollars of stoci^, and till the price shall fall 
below seventy-one dollars, forty-three cents, the State will 
not be paying more than seven per cent, the year interest 
for the money it borrows; — because, though the State calls 
the stock a hundred dollars which it sells for eighty, yet the 
twenty dollars apparent loss the State need never pay un. 
less it please. Such are the terms on which the stock is 
purchased. The State agrees that it will not pay before 
twenty years, and that it will not pay till such time after 
twenty years as it shall please. The bond of John Jacob 

* Published in 1842. 



252 

Astor for a thousand dollars, payable a hundred years 
hence, secured by a mortgage on the Astor House, would 
be worth now only one dollar, fifteen cents, because a 
dollar, fifteen cents, placed at compound seven per cent, in- 
terest for a hundred years, will amount to a thousand dol- 
lars. We may judge, therefore, how small the true value 
is of the twenty dollars which the State need not pay till it 
shall please. But even this view of the case is less benefi- 
cial to the State than the facts that exist ; for when the 
State shall wish to diminish its debt, the State need not 
pay the hundred dollars for the stock, but purchase it in 
market for what the price may happen to be. If the price 
shall fall, as some persons apprehend, the easier will be the 
terms on which the State debt can be paid. 

While the State can sell, as at present, a hundred dol- 
lars of five per cent, stock for eighty, the operation is, 
therefore, far from being so ruinous as some persons appre- 
hend. Should the State take the eighty dollars thus ob- 
tained, and loan it to a farmer on mortgage at seven per 
cent, interest, as it loaned the United States deposit money, 
the farmer would pay therefor five dollars and sixty cents 
the year, interest. This would yield the State sixty cents 
the year, interest, more than the State will pay the holder 
of the hundred dollar five per cent, stock. Now sixty cents 
the year, thus received, for twenty years, together with 
seven per cent, interest thereon, duly compounded, will, at 
the end of twenty years, amount to tw^enty-six dollars, 
eighty-seven cents, four mills ; being six dollars, eighty- 
seven cents, four mills, more than the apparent twenty dol- 
lars loss to the State, should the State choose to redeem its 
stock at par at the end of twenty years. And should the 
State prefer to let the stock remain unpaid for thirty- seven 
years, the accumulation of the sixty cents gain of each year 



ALTERNATIVE OF CONTINUING OUR STATE DEBT, ETC. 253 

and the annual interest thereon duly compounded, will 
then amount to a hundred and three dollars, thirty-four 
cents, four mills, with which the State can pay its stock, 
and thus gain by the process the whole of the eighty dol- 
lars that was originally received for the stock, and in addi- 
tion, three dollars, thirty-four cents, four mills. 

Instead of wondering, therefore, with some persons, at 
the high price which our State pays for the money that it 
borrows, we may rather be glad of the opportunity to ob- 
tain it on terms so favorable as the present rates. And 
though accidental circumstances caused our stocks, some 
years back, to sell at high prices, the same circumstances 
enhanced the price of labor and provisions; so that we may 
well doubt whether the eighty dollars which the State now 
obtains for a hundred dollars of stock, will not make as much 
canal and railroad as the larger sum made some years 
back. 



THE ALTEENATIVE OF CONTINUING OUK STATE DEBT OE 
LIQUIDATING IT BY TAXATION.* 
So far as income is a test of the amount of business which 
a canal facilitates, it is important ; but whether any such 
income shall be collected or not, is a question of national 
policy, the benefits of abandoning an income being, in 
some cases, greater than the income. The debt, also, 
which our State has contracted in the construction of its 
canals will not injure posterity, should we not pay it, pro- 
vided we transmit the canals with the debt ; just as a parent 
will not injure his heir by entailing on him the purchase- 
money of a lucrative landed estate, which he transmits to 
the heir with the debt. Should we create a canal and 

* Consolidated from two articles published in 1834 and 1842. 



254 ALTERNATIVE OF CONTINUING OUR STATE DEBT, ETC. 



wear it out in our day, leaving posterity nothing but the 
debt, posterity might well complain; but such will not be 
the condition of our canals, which promise to increase in 
lucrativeness as our country increases in population and 
productiveness. 

The true question, therefore, for us to decide, in relation 
to completing our canals, is, Whether the additional debt to 
be created will yield a permanent equivalent for the interest 
of the debt? That we should refuse to create the debt, un- 
less the investment will pay not merely the interest of the 
debt but the principal also, is a most unreasonable require- 
ment. Especially unreasonable is the requirement which 
politicians, in compliance with a supposed prejudice of the 
public, usually demand, that the only improvement which 
will justify the creation of a debt is one that will repay in 
twenty years the whole cost of its construction. Even a 
private citizen, whose calculations are necessarily affected 
by the brevity of human life, will invest his capital and 
credit in a farm, without limiting his purchases to such 
only as will repay the purchase money, in addition to the 
annual interest thereon. 

Our notions in relation to a public debt are founded on 
the national debt of Great Britain, which was created by 
the expenditures of war in past ages, and which we deem 
analogous to the proverbial burden of paying for a dead 
horse, or for clothes worn out and cast off. In contrast 
with the canals that we shall transmit to posterity, with 
the debt for their construction, our estimates of England's 
debt may be correct. But even the debt of Great Britain 
she would not accept a release from, on the condition of 
relinquishing the territorial acquisitions, commercial ex- 
tensions, and other existing benefits, in many forms, which 
were procured by the debt. 



PART III. 

MISCELLANY. 

THE ALMIGHTY DOLLAR ; OR, MOMY AS A MOTIVE FOR ACTION.* 

Among pugilists no possession is so highly prized as pu- 
gilistic skill, and among anglers no fame is so envied as 
skill in angling. In the degree that persons of any given 
taste preponderate thus in any community, their taste be- 
comes the standard by which all social pursuits are estima- 
ted in the community. We need not wonder, therefore, 
that the United States is the paradise of millionaires, mo- 
ney pursuits engrossing the activity of nearly all its inhab- 
itants, among whom the possession of a hundred thousand 
dollars confers a dignity equal to a baronetcy in England. 
Five hundred thousand equals an earldom ; a million 
makes a duke, and two millions a prince of the blood 
royal, with power to confer knighthood by the investiture 
of merely a passing recognition. When such a man dies at 
eighty, the event is deemed an inscrutable dispensation, and 
his last will is published as a precious curiosity. But we 
are not a fawning people; indeed, thrift would not follow 
fawning, our money passion not permitting us to part 
from money for so unsubstantial an exchange. ]^Ioney 
sways us by rather a kingly right divine, originating in the 
complacency we feel thereto, irrespective of any selfish ex- 

* Published in 1856. 



256 

pectation therefrom, just as a man's love of female beauty 
commands his complacency towards it, how evanescent so- 
ever may be his meeting therewith. 

The power over us of money results from our political 
institutions, which preclude titulary distinctions. We are 
like men debarred from champagne and ortolans, and who 
substitute coarser stimulants and grosser meats ; hence a 
Crimean medal, with which a British soldier can solace his 
wounds, we so little understand, that our warriors, on hear- 
ing of such a recompense, would probably ask naively, what 
metal the medal is composed of, and its value in dollars. 
tVe understand no better the red or blue ribbon for which 
a British general deems a leg or an eye well lost ; and when 
we read the memoirs of Cardinal De Eetz, of France, we 
are mystified at the elaborate court intrigues he instituted 
to procure from the Pope a white cloak, the Pallium, where- 
with to deck his shoulders. 

The money m.otive dictates what is lucrative to the actor^ 
irrespective of its effects on other persons, while the hon- 
orary motive dictates what is reputable, irrespective of its 
eflfects on the actor; hence, from its unselfishness, the hon- 
orary motive has always been deemed morally superior to 
the pecuniary. Miss Nightingale, in volunteering to nurse 
gratuitously the sick and wounded in the Crimea, is a good 
type of the honorary motive ; while the Crimean contractor, 
who supplied the troops with medicine, arms and ammuni- 
tion, on terms the most advantageous to himself that could 
be procured, is a fair type of the money motive. The two 
motives may, however, be contrasted as to their relative 
social consequences, and this contrast has never been at- 
tempted, the consequences never having been fully known 
till they spontaneously developed themselves in the United 
States. The^two motives differ herein most widely : in the 



MONEY AS A MOTIVE FOR ACTION. 257 

universality with which the money motive acts, giving to 
all persons in the United States the same impulse for ac- 
tivity ; while the titular motive, the highest of the hono- 
rary, operates on only a comparatively small portion of 
any community. Nor is this quite all. The honorary mo- 
tive, where it is prevalent, withdraws the elite of society 
from the ordinary utilitarian pursuits of life, and even rela- 
tively discredits them ; while the money motive knows no 
distinction of employments but lucrative and unlucrative ; 
and, providentially, the lucrativeness of any occupation is 
usually commensurate with the magnitude and universality 
of its utility. The United States accordingly excels all na- 
tions in utilitarian instrumentalities, — in the swiftness and 
tonnage of its navy, in commercial enterprise, in the in- 
vention of machinery to save labor, increase production, 
facilitate locomotion, expedite intelligence, diffuse informa- 
tion, and generally in restlessness of personal activity and 
disregard of personal ease and^uxurious relaxation. 

The next important difference between the honorary 
motive and the pecuniary, relates to the patrons which the 
motives respectively invoke. "Patronized by Her Majes- 
ty and all the Aristocracy," is a common announcement in 
England, and accordingly whatever instrumentalities such 
patrons desire, the nation excels in : as palatial residences, 
splendid libraries, gorgeous equipages, furniture, statuary, 
paintings, apparel, retinue, &c. ; while our patrons being 
every man who possesses a dollar, we cater for the multi- 
tude by magnificent taverns in every thoroughfjire, and 
magnificent steamboats on every river. In nothing is an 
American traveller more surprised than at the meagreness 
of board and lodging he finds at the best hotels of London 
or Paris ; and at the shabbiness of steamboat accommoda- 
tions in any part of Europe ; the magnates of Europe not 

12* 



\yM^ ^\^ ^x^ IW ?kU^ ^^>*^«^jfttiy Enit^^ft'ti^ whic^ p<^ 

*s^^i^* \hi> imvkl ^.^<^V^?M\^ n^\V^J>;^}H>^^ ^^<\^«)^tUm ivx ^UIVV|>^^ 

«^^t^ ^x^ mk>xii\i K....\ '- ^ ■u<M\m\^ d^il^ 'j>^el^toA» 

th^t J>x\ ^^\^mx\ i!i^^\%-A\is^ m 9^mmh'i>U^m^ ^M ^x^ a^ 
i\\i> \\s ^>^y \\\^ s.\^:^x^ x%^^i^\\^\^\ bv \hm ^xxm^l w^ntik 
IV\p)^)ii(P»p h^^\))y ^^>^ imx\ ^m\XkXk\x^m ^\>4 t^ffiigr^ni^ im^ 
yW^ \h^x^ mix }i> ^\M\>\>xx>h^M ih^t th*^ j>^J*y vvhn^^^ ^M^U 
^ iW Ujhh^ th^y Wi>» ^ifi^^t* C^ft^vU ^)^\ ^rui \^ ^^ 
Xhx^m^kk n \i(S ih^ i^t^t^ \*s l^<^*^ !h%y ?*l ^^ b^^^t T^i^f* 

Axksi VHNWv xi' w-^ i. y '"^fimt^mis ^ 

Wl ft^Mft^ ^ \» ^ ^\> ^^t'dl^tkft ft^m b^iiftf hir^ 



k«f>wir>l thai w^ giv^ an ^^nWnlmi (m' »ll w^ mmh^, »rt4 

mt^fmms »11 (^t m. H'm Bmmy mht^?^ a amv^fmiUm 
u(i\i§ Uttk^^f Qhfm§^ (mb^§qmm\y William tl]><^F^Hh 
</f En^lmd) who it^ulud hr Uk mrvmU hy fiMn^ ^* \t 
\m mmfik ^^m mtiy^ f=^f»m^k ll*^y yw\m\t\y ^tim^ tb# 
mUiiom §f high md hw prodming iU§k m§mUif m Mta* 

y^tii h^ ii^ ymii^ttml Ummiga r>f dmuU, Tl*« #y^(^m m* 
»\i§d tb§ few ^vomi^^ into Oimfo§f at aw mpmm of d^' 
hmUi^ i\w mnhlimlfi o( Uii^mi^ i wW\k (mr^mmnhtj mtu' 
pmtmimi m^^^ dmnUi imu d^grmUium mtd mdy \m^)S 
sd^m^^y on » kv§\ wHh oih§f pmmii§, Th§ ^pmilm of 
Cbf bii;<i^*ify In&rm^.d i\m mvm-mm Umtird§ iUatn of iimk 
d'mipkpi by '^ wotking with tb^^r o^n h»nd^^* hf ihekmh' 
§ki^nm'f mdrntmrnhrnqmrn spiriiml i§mh§n mi^§d 
into yowfi of fmfp§in^\ povmiy, Our mvf^mnm for i\m 
§kr§y w^ §«p©«d in pmunimy ^oniribuilomf milmv ihati 
in p#r.<^(>Ml oh§i$quiomn4imt ihm h^^ to §^ifiUm] iyrmny j 
motmy up^miint^ wiiU m m a §0¥i of ** ^afeiy--v»lv*5/' Uy 
whieb we mn ^* hi gif^ my mnouni of ^ismn iUui i« m' 
oe^mry io the imnqmMng of our fmiini^^ wlmn umMy #*' 
GiiMd i mid eu^tom tmdef§ i\w op^miion m mii4'fmiory io 
ih($ donm§ m it ij^ f^e^rvaiiv§ ot ind^mndmi mif-rm^moi 
io the donof-^, In Ewgjafld, wUmi military efitl*ttv«iagm b@- 
eomm rartij>attt iowmh a Ndmn or a WMti^ionf iiw muU 
iitnde r§mo^& from bi^ mrritig^ i\m hornm Md mi\Miiui§ 
iimmmlve?^ 'f wUlk in Vrmim, i\m popuhiion ** how dowu^^ 
md h§§om§ ih§ mff^ni§ for ^v§f of a Be>«apart#, In tb#s# 
or mnm oih^r way§, i\m honorary moitv^ mnmnmmm^t^ 
ii^ inimnimi by only ri^lativ^ly d^nmrnig tb«j mmm§', 
wbJie we, und^r tbe fik§ §ff&fv^m^ne§ of our fMng^f pro 
ft La Fayette §mm iownMps of hnd, '/» fix-, t^onqu^or of 



260 THE ALMIGHTY DOLLAR; OR, 

Mexico some thousands of dollars, and the treasury deple- 
tion allays the tumult of our admiration without derogating 
from any person's liberty or importance. But many peo- 
ple may judge, that the best effect of the money motive is 
its tendency to peace, in contradistinction to the honorary 
motive which tends to war. The French have stigmatized 
the English as a nation of shop-keepers, in contempt of the 
supposed occasional honorary sacrifices of England for the 
preservation of peace ; but while this recognizes the money 
motive as operative in England, its effect is more pervading 
in the United States than in any other nation that ever ex- 
isted. 

The money motive possesses, however, its disadvanta- 
ges in contrast with the honorary. Our devotees of the 
fine arts are so infected by the prevailing influence of mo- 
ney that laurel crowns are disregarded ; and our sculptors 
labor only on busts for those who will pay therefor, as shoe- 
makers make shoes. Our painters design only portraits to 
order, as tailors make coats ; while our authors expend 
their efforts in compiling and imitating rather than in 
originating — in travelling over beaten paths instead of 
opening untried ones — in constructing elementary, class, 
and school books — and generally in producing the easy lit- 
erature which is easily produced. But we exceed all peo- 
ple in coarse humor, (Brother Jonathams, Yankee Notions, 
Negro Minstrelsy, &c.,) and for the reason that it will pay 
for the time bestowed thereon. It evinces that we are not 
deficient in originality, but that slop goods and furbished 
old clothes, suit our market better than better articles that 
are " caviare to the million." The same cause operates 
with us disadvantageously to the clerical profession, whose 
pecuniary compensation being small under our voluntary 
system, the profession rarely attracts to its ranks youth of 



MONEY AS A MOTIVE FOR ACTION. 261 

much intellectual vigor except when connected with a body 
too feeble for the masculine efforts of more wealth-procuring 
occupations ; while in England, where lordly distinctions 
are open to the clergy, the profession has ever included 
men of the highest intellectual organization. The medical 
profession depends in England on the money motive as in 
this country ; hence the profession is more alike in the two 
countries than the clerical ; except that the medical is dis- 
advantageously influenced among us by the money motive, 
which repels from the profession, to more lucrative employ- 
ments, the shrewdest intellects ; though in no department of 
knowledge is shrewdness of intellect so advantageous as in 
medicine and surgery. The State of New- York has abol- 
ished nearly all the lucrativeness of the legal profession, 
and the youth who now become lawyers are, as a class, 
especially in the interior of the State, much inferior, intel- 
lectually, to those who entered the profession formerly, 
when its lucrativeness equalled the most favored pursuits. 
In no country so certainly as here will a deterioration of 
employees follow a diminution of emolument ; and thus we 
have banished from all our legislatures, National and State, 
nearly all the most intelligent of our citizens, for they can 
employ themselves more lucratively than in political sta- 
tions. 

But the worst aspect of the money motive is its tendency 
to a low state of morals. A sovereign's social position is 
but little influenced by the means that procured his eleva- 
tion ; so we overlook in a rich man the means by which 
he obtained his riches. Morality approves this where 
wealth is untainted with ill desert ; but we make no marked 
difl^erence in our conduct towards wealth, whatever may 
have been the vileness of its obtainment. 

The Jews of Europe exemplify some of the results that 



262 THE ALMIGHTY DOLLAE ; OR, MONEY AS A MOTIVE, ETC. 

the money motive is eliciting here. Being debarred by law 
or prejudice from obtaining titular honors, they seek riches 
as the highest permitted distinction, and naturally subordi- 
nate thereto much that the honorary motive prefers. What 
a loss to the world has been their eighteen centuries of de- 
basement ! — if, as is affirmed, they are more intellectually 
acute than any other race ; an affirmation they have, how- 
ever, not verified here, where they suffer no legal disa- 
bilities, and are continually vanquished at their own game 
of pecuniary accumulation ; though, probably, time enough 
has not elapsed to wean them from the petty traffic to 
which oppression originally crushed them, and to give their 
aspirations a higher aim. 

Among the specific evils which the money motive is de- 
veloping in our country, is a corruption in legislation, if we 
may at all believe what is openly alleged of both Congress 
and our State Legislatures ; so that private gain supersedes 
national honor, utility, and justice; while even the perpetu- 
ity of our Confederacy seems secondary- to the spoils which 
its wreck may supply to individuals. How long our elect- 
ors will remain pure from the influence of money is doubt- 
ful. Yotes are said to be now purchasable in some locali- 
ties, especially Congressional votes ; for in Congress the 
opportunity is great for corrupt gains, and the motive con- 
sequently large for election thereto ; hence, in some dis- 
tricts a canvass for Congressional representatives is thought 
to be hopeless without a profuse employment of money, 
the victory being sure to the candidate who will expend 
the most, and who ordinarily is he who expects to make 
from the office the most in illegal gains ; and thus the 
election seems to be decided on a principle that insures 
subsequent venality. A like evil is sadly apparent in our 
management of private corporations, and it ramifies through 



THE RELATIVE MERITS OF LIFE INSURANCE, ETC. 263 

all fiducial positions. Our judiciary is believed to have, as 
yet, escaped the bad influences to which other establish- 
ments have yielded; though the economy we practice in 
the compensation of judges tends to turn from the bench 
the best organized intellects, and who, generally, are best 
for also the conception of duty, purity, and integrity. 

I have thus stated the relative national value and ten- 
dency of the two motives which ordinarily govern society, 
— the honorary and pecuniary ; but I have said only enough 
to call attention to what has been hitherto overlooked. I 
believe the money motive to be, in the aggregate, more 
beneficial to the whole of mankind than the honorary ; 
as witness our unexampled physical achievements, personal 
enjoyments, and national prosperity ; and when our defects 
are perceived, the good sense and good intentions of our 
citizens are, I trust, sufficient to correct the evils of the 
money motive, and enjoy the good unalloyed. 



THE EELATITE MERITS OF LIFE INSURANCE AND SAVINGS 
BANKS.^ 

LIFE INSURANCE POSSESSES MANY OF THE ELEMENTS OF 
GAMBLING. 

The characteristic of gambling consists in the absence 
of mutual benefit to the players. So in life insurance, no 
party thereto will usually gain, except at the loss of the cor- 
relative party. The chance of gain is also adverse to the 
insured, as is demonstrated by the large surplus profits 
which life insurance companies announce the possession 
of; and which profits, like the foot-prints around a slaugh- 

* Published in 1851. 



264 THE RELATIVE MERITS OF LIFE INSURANCE 

ter-house, may admonish those who are entering, that the 
current inwards exceeds greatly the current outwards. 
Life insurance is promoted by the same artifice as lotteries, 
— the publication of every case where an adventurer dies 
soon after the commencement of Iiis insurance ; while 
nothing is said where the insured abandons his policy in 
disgust, or from sickness, poverty, or inadvertence, after 
having distressed himself for years by annual premiums ; 
— nor where a person pays much more than his heirs are 
to receive back on his death. A gentleman of this city, 
who became married at the age of twenty-five years, and 
whose support consisted of a small annuity, insured five 
thousand dollars on his life, at an annual premium of eighty 
dollars, which he could badly spare. 

As the premium is paid in advance, it, at the end of the year, 

amounted, with legal interest, to $85 60 

He then paid another 80 00 

The interest on which, with the interest on the former 

$85 60, was 11 59 

Making at the end of two years $177 19 

Should he continue the process twenty-four years, he 
will have paid, in principal and interest, $5,038 86, being 
$38 86 more than his widow is to receive at his death ; 
but he is young and robust, and should he live till he 
becomes seventy-five years old, his payments, and com- 
pound interest thereon, will amount to more than $37,000 ; 
— consequently, after his widow shall receive the stipulated 
$5,000, his loss on the transaction will be $32,000. 

MEN NEED THE COERCION OF NECESSITY, NOT THE ANODYNE 
OF SECURITY. 

But gambling lures men from industry, frugality, and 
accumulation, by hopes of gain, through processes less 



AND SAVINGS BANKS. 265 

« 
slow than these, and less self-denying ; and in this result, 

also, life insurance assimilates with gambling. " Eat, 
drink, and be merry, for to-morrow we die," and a life- 
insurance will provide for our family, is the tendency of 
life insurances, whether conducted by corporations which 
catch large adventurers, or by clubs that catch humble 
people, or by health societies, that wring from manual 
laborers their pettiest surplus earnings. To paralyze a 
man's efforts, no surer means can be devised, than compa- 
nies and clubs which shall care for him in sickness, bury 
him when dead, and provide for his widow and orphans. 
By like inflaences, the heirs of rich men exhibit rarely 
self-denial in expenditures, or energy in business, and be- 
come drones in society. Necessity is nature's expedient 
to vanquish man's love of ease. Providence intends that 
we shall take care of the future by taking care of the pres- 
ent, and take care of our descendants by taking care of 
ourselves ; just as a horse takes care of its hind steps, by 
taking heed where he places his fore feet. 

WHATEVER SUPPLIES THE OFFICE OF THRIFT SUPERSEDES 
THRIFT. 

Ignorant of human nature is he who believes punish- 
ment can be wholesomely disconnected from crime, evil 
from vice, or poverty from any thing but self-denial. If, 
like our Indians, we possessed no artificial melioration of 
pauperism, we, like them, should possess no voluntary pau- 
pers. The Bavarian Government punishes not only beg- 
gars, but persons who give alms, either in money or vic- 
tuals. No man is so reckless as to remain in bed when 
the house in which he is lying is on fire ; but he may re- 
side in a dilapidated house till it fall and crush him, if the 
catastrophe is not imminent. So, if no life insurance 



266 THE EELATIVE MERITS OF LIFE INSUFANCE 

would provide for our families after our decease, no health 
insurance or club would provide for ourselves during dis- 
ease, and bury us decently when dead, we should provide 
for these purposes by self-denying accumulations. 

A man's performances are graduated by his efforts. 

A civilized man's wants are numerous, an Indian's com- 
paratively few ; hence the civilized man labors more than 
the savage, and thence proceeds the difference in their per- 
formance. Every man's productions will, ordinarily, be 
thus proportioned to his efforts ; therefore, some govern- 
ments stimulate efforts by protective duties and honorary 
distinction ; but where a man aspires to only present ne- 
cessaries, and to a club for assistance in sickness, and a 
life insurance for his widow and orphans, he will accom- 
plish only what he aspires to. A man's efforts dilate, like 
the atmosphere, in proportion to the vacuum which the 
efforts are required to fill ; hence, the man who strives for 
present affluence, as his only provision against sickness and 
death, will find his efforts expand with his aspiration, and 
his accomplishments will increase with his efforts. These 
principles are true of states and nations. The Federal 
Government refused to construct the Erie Canal, and 
thereby induced the State of Kew-York to invoke its own 
energies, from whence soon proceeded the Erie Canal. 
A long train of kindred public works immediately followed, 
by reason that, when men discover their own efficiency, 
they continue the exercise of it after the occasion by which 
it was originally induced. The conflagrations of San 
Francisco have been severally succeeded by a new city of 
increased solidity ; and the mechanics of that region, act- 
ing under the excitement of great demand for labor and 
high remunerative wages, seem to be a race of giants ; 



AND SAVINGS BANKS. 267 

though, when driven, by lack of encouragement, from our 
Atlantic cities, they went out a race of pigmies. 



What the poor expend in tobacco we lament, forgetting 
that men labor by only the coercion of wants, and that Di- 
ogenes, who disciplined himself to live without wants, lived 
without labor also. Tobacco, and other coarse super- 
fluities, perform for the poor what equipages and gorgeous 
furniture perform for the rich. Our organization is so ad- 
mirably adapted to keep us active, by the coercion of 
wants, that new wants arise in every man spontaneously 
as fast as he can satisfy old ones. Napoleon, in the zenith 
of his prosperity, craved more dominion, with an intensity 
augmented by his present possession, not mitigated there- 
by. The design of Providence, to thus keep men active by 
the pressure of wants, life insurance and assistance clubs 
counteract. All sumptuary laws contain the same error, 
and all Malthusian restraints on marriage. Railroads 
would never have been invented, had we coercively limited 
the operations of every man to his neighborhood, as a 
means of obviating the disadvantages of distance. 

LIFE INSURANCE SUBSTITUTES A REMOTE GOOD IN PLACE OF A 
PRESENT EXIGENCY. 

A man who labors to purchase an insurance on his life 
for the benefit of his future widow and orphans, cannot 
command the energy which he would feel were he laboring 
for present affluence ; — distance of time operating on man's 
energies like distance of space operates on the attraction 
of a magnet. This effect of distance every man feels 
when, in the midst of health, he indites his last will and tes- 
tament. Aware of this natural difficulty, when a celebrated 



268 THE RELATIVE MERITS OF LIFE INSURANCE 

English judge wrote his own will, he took ten guineas from 
his purse and laid them on the table, that he might stimu- 
late his intellect by the semblance of a present interest. 
And, still worse, life insurance is obstructive of present in- 
terests. A man's early annual savings are ordinarily small ; 
and whether he is to grow affluent or remain poor, depends, 
usually, on whether he employs his small savings in pro- 
cesses of increase, or extinguishes them in annual pre- 
miums of life insurance, or some other way ; just as 
whether a man shall make money in the purchase of 
wheat, wool, or cotton, depends, usually, on petly savings 
of expense in the management of his purchase, rather than 
on any great increase of marketable price between the 
time of his purchase and sales. Imagine, now, a father 
who shall keep himself poor, by an annual drain of his 
savings to some life insurance, for the remote benefit of his 
wife. He dies, and she commences a like process for the 
benefit of her children. She dies, and the children sever- 
ally begin the same process for the benefit of their de- 
scendants ; and thus, like a cat in chase after its tail, the 
world is made to revolve around a life insurance, in pur- 
suit of an always future competency, instead of a present 
affluence ; whereby a less motive is continually substituted 
for a greater. 

LIFE INSURANCE IS UNFAVORABLE TO DOMESTIC PURITY. 

In England, mothers have been convicted of murdering 
their infants to obtain some petty sum which certain clubs 
bestow for funeral expenses on members whose children 
die. Not long since, a man in London killed with strych- 
nia his wife's sister, after having induced her to insure her 
life largely for the benefit of his wife. The motive to such 
murders is so operative that they are no longer uncommon ; 



AND SAVINGS BANKS. 269 

hence English companies reject all insurances where the 
applicant cannot show that the beneficiary possesses as 
much interest in the life of the insured as he is to gain by 
his death. It" our insurance companies are not equally 
cautious, every life policy which contravenes the precau- 
tion is the tender of a bounty for the commission of mur- 
der ; and the tender may be fearfully effectual when pes- 
tilence makes sudden death escape scrutiny ; to say noth- 
ing of ordinary diseases, in which, whether the issue shall 
be life or death, depends often on ministrations whose pre- 
cise quality cannot be apparent to observers ; and much of 
the attendance on the sick is secluded from all observation. 
A man, well known in New- York, was prostrate with dis- 
ease, when his life insurance became renewable. His wife 
knew the contingency, but she possessed no means of pay- 
ing the required premium. The policy would expire on 
the morrow, and, though his recovery was possible, the 
support of his family depended, probably, on his speedy 
death. Conjugal duty and pecuniary interest were in de- 
moralizing conflict. Was the wife to attempt a prolonga- 
tion of his life under the hazard of a widowhood of penury; 
or was she to intermit ministrations on which alone a pro- 
longation was possible ? He died before midnight, the 
hour at which his policy was to expire ; and though char- 
ity may hope the result was produced by Providence, 
against the best efforts of the widow, the less human na- 
ture is thus tempted the purer will be our domestic rela- 
tions. 

SAVINGS BANKS ARE AS CONDUCIVE TO THRIFT AS LIFE INSUR- 
ANCE IS TO UNTHRIFT. 

The disadvantages of life insurance proceed from our 
organization, and, therefore, are inevitable. The advan- 



270 THE RELATIVE MERITS OF LIFE INSURANCE 

tages of savings banks are equally organic. A boy who 
makes snow-balls will throw thenn away as fast as he 
makes them ; but should he chance to roll up one of more 
than ordinary size, it will excite in him an ambition to en- 
large it, instead of throwing it away ; and the bigger it be- 
comes under his efforts, the stronger will become his desire 
for its further increase. The principle applies to money. 
The day's earnings of a poor man are cast away as soon 
as earned, a man's recklessness being as great as his 
poverty ; but should he deposit any of his earnings in a 
savings bank, an appetite for accumulation is immediately 
produced by the unusual possession of a surplus; and the 
appetite, growing by what it feeds on, will add an impulse 
to the industry and frugality of the depositor, " Eat, drink, 
and be merry, for to-morrow we die," is no longer the maxim 
of such a man, but rather : refrain from expenditure to day, 
that we may add to our deposits to-morrow. 

ACCUMULATION IS A MORE SALUTARY RELIANCE AGAINST WANT 
THAN LIFE INSURANCE. 

To become fonder of accumulation than of expenditure 
is the first step towards wealth. An agriculturist will re- 
ceive a few grains of an improved species of corn, which 
he will not eat, but will plant them, and re-plant the pro- 
duct from year to year, till his few grains will become 
hundreds of bushels. Money is increasable by analogous 
processes ; and success is within the power of every man 
who shall attain to ordinar)'- longevity. If a man at the 
age of twenty years can save from his earnings twenty-six 
cents every working day, and annually invest the aggre- 
gate at compound legal 7 per cent, interest, he will, at the 
age of seventy, possess $32,000. Many men who resort to 
life insurance, can save several times twenty-six cents 



AND SAVINGS BANKS. 271 

daily, and thus accumulate several times the above sum, 
long before the age of seventy. Nearly all large fortunes 
are the result of such accumulations; hence the men who 
amass great fortunes are usually those only who live long. 
The last few years of Grirard's and Astor's lives increased 
their wealth more than scores of early years. To be in 
haste to become rich by a few great operations, is a direct 
road to eventual poverty. We cannot, however, command 
long life, but we can approximate thereto by commencing 
early the process of accumulation — an elongation by ex- 
tending backward being as efficacious as an elongation for- 
ward. Every hundred dollars expended by a man of 
the age of twenty years, is an expenditure of what, at our 
legal rate of interest, would, by compounding it annually, 
become ^3,000 should he live to the age of seventy. This 
lesson is taught practically by savings banks, and well 
counteracts the fatal mistake of the young, that old age is 
the period for accumulation, and youth the period for ex- 
penditure. By like principles, a young man who pays an- 
nually a premium for life insurance, loses not the premiums 
alone, but the immense increase which the money would 
produce, should he invest it at compound interest, and live 
to the ordinary limit of man's life. Extremely old men, 
who have no length of life in prospect, are the only per- 
sons, if any, who should insure their lives, for the expense 
of their insurance would be but little more than the annual 
premiums. 

TO TEACH THE POOR SELF-DEPENDENCE IS A BETTER CHA- 
RITY THAN ALMS. 

" The poverty of the poor is their destruction," says the 
Bible, but savings banks correct this evil, by enabling 
them to accumulate their savings, and become rich by the 



272 THE RELATIVE MERITS OF LIFE INSURANCE 

means which, alone, ordinarily make the rich richer. 
That no class of persons may be excluded from the vivify- 
ing process of accumulation, savings banks for the recep- 
tion of penny deposits have recently been instituted in 
London, and numerous are the reported instances of the 
salutary change they have produced in the habits and 
pecuniary condition of the depositors. Nature kindly aids 
the improvement by the organic mode in w^hich every man 
estimates his possessions — not by comparing himself with 
other people, but by comparing his present possessions 
with his former ; so that a man who possesses a surplus of 
two pence will feel rich, (as we experience in children,) if 
he never before possessed a greater surplus than a penny. 
We have long sought to benefit the poor, by administering 
free soup to the destitute, penitentiaries to the wayward, 
clubs and life insurance to the thriftless ; but if we induce 
the poor man to accumulate his occasional surplus earnings, 
we Shall enable him to cook his own soup, support his 
family better by his life than by his death, and diminish the 
inmates of penitentiaries. 

THE EXPENDITURE OF MONEY IS THE MOST IGNOBLE OF 
ITS USES. 

The highest value of affluence is the social influence 
which it confers, whereby the possessor may become useful 
to society by his example and precept. Many persons 
keep themselves poor by lavish expenditures, in the hope 
of being deemed rich, and enjoying the superiority which 
riches confer. The deception is necessarily of short du- 
ration ; but had the party carefully saved and accumulated, 
he might soon have become permanently rich. The 
mental anguish which a man feels when he loses part 
of a large fortune, proceeds from an imagined diminution 



AND SAVINGS BANKS. 273 

of his influence and power, not from any physical priva- 
tions that the lost wealth will create. Nor is such a no- 
tion fanciful ; men who have been esteemed wise counsel- 
lors while rich, lose commonly their reputed wisdom, if 
they lose their property. This phenomenon was observed 
by Shakspeare, who accounts for it by saying : — 

" Men's judgments are 
A parcel of their fortunes ; and things outward 
Do draw the inward quality after them, 
To suffer all alike." 

That money is useless except for the physical enjoy- 
ments which its expenditure will produce, is the error of 
the poor ; while persons who have experienced the intel- 
lectual gratifications which resu t from the retention of 
money, gain a better estimate of its value. The respect 
that attends wealth is as old as the Bible, which says — " If 
a man come unto your assembly with a gold ring and 
goodly apparel, and there come in also a poor man in vile 
apparel, and ye have respect to him that weareth the gay 
clothing, and say unto him, Sit thou here in a good place, 
and say to the poor. Stand thou there, are ye not partial ?" 
If two men arrive at the Astor House, where the charge 
for board and lodging is the same for both, the man 
who is known to possess the most property will be lodged 
in a better room than the other, and receive, in every way, 
a preference. If the two take passage in a steamboat, the 
like preference will be accorded to the man of superior 
wealth ; and these instances are but exemplifications of a 
general custom. 

THE SLOW ACCUMULATION OF PROPERTY PRODUCES BETTER 
MORAL EFFECTS THAN SUDDEN ACaUISlTION OF PROPERTY. 

A man's selfrespect, and the respect of his wife and 
children for him and themselves, will increase continually 

13 



274 THE RELATIVE MERITS OF LIFE INSURAIS^CE 

as his savings augment. The gradual increase of wealth 
which attends the accumulation of a man's savings, is also 
more favorable to its preservation, and to the possessor's 
equanimity, than any sudHen accumulation of property. 
The upstart is a well-known genus of repulsive and perni- 
cious peculiarities. A family who succeed to the slowly- 
accumulated savings of a deceased father, know his modes 
of investment, (a knowledge almost as valuable as the pro- 
perty he may leave them,) and the family will be more 
likely to retain the property permanently, than a widow 
or orphans suddenly enriched by a life insurance, which 
will be paid them in money, of whose proper uses and safe 
investment they will be ignorant. Besides, the parent 
whose savings are safely accumulated, feels not the anxiety 
which sometimes attends life insurance, lest he may be in- 
capacitated by sickness, inadvertence or disappointment, 
from paying his burdensome and insidious renewal pre- 
mium. He is, on the contrary, master at all times of his 
savings, and can recall them all or a part, as his necessi- 
ties may require, or as more lucrative investments may 
become known to him — Savings Banks being a school to 
teach the art of accumulation to the poor, rather than a 
resort for experienced capitalists. Nor is a Savings Bank 
depositor a sort of prisoner, under bonds not to travel into 
foreign countries, without the consent of some life insu- 
rance company ; his freedom nor his money is lost to him ; 
nor, in case of his death, are his deposits liable to be wrest- 
ed from his family by any quibble, such as life insurance 
companies occasionally will and always can interpose, 
where the company happens to believe that the insured 
person was not so robust as he or some physician repre- 
sented at the commencement of his insurance. 



AND SAVINGS BANKS. 275 

SAVINGS BANKS SHOULD PAY DEPOSITORS AS MUCH INTEREST 
AS PRACTICABLE. 

As Savings Banks are usually the laboring man's only 
secure mode of accumulation, they should pay depositors 
as high a rate of interest as practicable; for the more pro- 
ductive a poor man's mite can be made, the stronger will 
be his motive for frugality and industry. Some Savings 
Banks in Connecticut pay depositors 5 1-2 per cent, inte- 
rest, while our banks pay only 5 per cent., though our legal 
interest is one per cent, more than in Connecticut; conse- 
quently, our long-established city Savings Banks have ac- 
cumulated enormously large surplus profits, which exist 
without a legal owner or a legitimate object. These banks 
are required by their charters "to regulate the rate of in- 
terest so that depositors shall receive a ratable proportion of 
all the profits, after deducting necessary expenses ;" but 
the provision fails to effect its object, as is manifested by 
the accrued surplus profits, portions whereof have in some 
cases been invested in the erection of palatial banking- 
houses, and the purchase of valuable city grounds. The 
depositors from whose hard earnings these costly invest- 
ments were involuntarily abstracted, have received their 
stipulated 5 per cent, interest, drawn out their deposits, 
and are heard of no more for ever. Like other property 
for whom no owner exists, erections of the above character 
belong to the State, and are subject to legislative disposal, 
together with all other surplus profits possessed by these 
institutions. Why, then, should not all Savings Banks be 
compelled honestly to divide annually (as a bonus) among 
its depositors, the total amount of its net earnings beyond 
the stipulated 5 per cent? The surplus which any bank 
may own at the time of the enactment of the law, can be 
reserved from distribution, except the income which may 



276 THE RELATIVE MERITS OF LIFE INSURANCE, ETC. 

thereafter be annually earned therefrom. Every Savings 
Bank possessing a surplus, will thus present to new deposi- 
tors an inducement which will be salutary to the thrifty 
poor who may avail themselves of the common benefit ; 
and as the existing large surplusses are owned mostly in 
cities, the inducement will be presented to the class of 
poor persons who are locally (by reason of surrounding 
temptations) most in need of inducements to self-denying 
accumulations. The law will be beneficial to depositors 
also, who reside where new Savings Banks are located, by 
reason that the depositors will receive more than 5 per 
cent, interest, as soon as the bank shall possess deposits 
enough to neutralize the contingent expenses ; and thus 
every depositor will become a quasi bank stockholder, to 
the amount of his deposits, and feel a common interest in 
increasing the number of depositors, so as to diminish 
ratably the per-centage of contingent expenses. ; 

CONCLUSION. 

Finally, in our legislation towards Savings Banks, we 
must remember that the conception of them may have 
originated in abstract benevolence, but they achieve good 
as an incident of machinery which is usually instituted for 
only the personal gain of salaried officers, or for some kin- 
dred private benefit. To the Legislature we must look for 
laws that shall coercively carry into practice the public 
benevolence which the institutions are capable of effecting, 
or they will continue to accomplish only as much public 
benefit as shall be necessary to secure private gains. 



THE POLITICAL AND ECONOMICAL INFLUENCE, ETC. 277 



THE POLITICAL AND ECONOMICAL INFLUENCE OF USURY LAWS * 

THE RATE OF INTEREST AFFECTS THE PRICE OF 
COMMODITIES. 

The right of a man to obtain as high a rate of interest as 
he can for his own money, will always be subordinated by 
the public to their right to promote their own welfare. 
Nor is this unreasonable, money being productive only by 
the industry of the public, as the Onondaga Salines are 
valuable only by the desires of salt consumers. A man 
owning the Salines might insist on an abstract right to 
charge what he pleases for the salt ; but as he must depend 
on the community for purchasers, and for supplying legal 
enac;ments by which his possessions will be secure from 
forceful seizure, the community would properly require that 
the price should be regulated by a reciprocity of interests, 
on the principle of live and let live. Nor are borrowers 
and lenders, combined, the only persons affected by the le- 
gal rate of interest, any more than the importer of foreign 
goods, and the Government are the only persons affected 
by a tariff; all imposts being ultimately paid by the con- 
sumer of imported goods, and all interest entering into the 
price of productions. The purchaser of a loaf of bread, or 
a joint of beef, must compensate the baker, or the butcher, 
according to the legal rate of interest for the capital em- 
ployed in his business ; nay, the grazier who raises and fat- 
tens the beef, the miller who grinds the flour, and the 
farmer who produces the wheat, must all receive, for their 
productions, a price sufficient to cover, among other ex- 
penses, the interest of the money employed in their busi- 

* Published in 1856. 



278 THE POLITICAL AND ECONOMICAL 

ness. The legal rate of interest controls still more directly 
the price of real estate. If my farm will rent for seven 
dollars an acre, it will be worth a hundred dollars the acre 
if the interest of money is seven per cent, the year, but it 
will not be worth more than fifty dollars the acre were the 
interest of money fourteen per cent. ; and it would be worth 
two hundred dollars the acre, were the interest of money 
limited by law to three and a hdf per cent. The same 
principle applies to the price of rentable property of every 
kind. 

THE RATE OF INTEREST DICTATES NOT MERELY THE PRICE 
OF COMMODITIES, BUT THEIR PRODUCTION. 

If a woolen or cotton factory is to be established in 
your vicinity, a raih'oad constructed, or gas and water in- 
troduced, will you become a corporator in these enterpri- 
ses ? If the business will pay seven per cent, annual divi- 
dends, the stock may be taken where the interest of money 
is limited by law to seven percent. ; but where more than 
seven per cent, can be legally obtained, the stock will not 
be taken, and the designed business cannot be prosecuted. 
In California, where the rate of interest is two per cent, or 
more the month, no manufactural establishment will be un- 
dertaken whose dividends will not exceed seven per cent. 
the year. The legal rate of interest in Massachusetts, is 
only one per cent, the year less than it is in New- York, 
still that difference makes cotton and woollen manufacto- 
ries more desirable investments in Massachusetts than in 
New- York. This influence of the rate of interest on in- 
dustrial pursuits, and the price of rentable property, w^as 
recognized in England more than a hundred years ago, by 
the statute which reduced the rate of interest to five per 
cent., and whose preamble says, that " reducing interest to 



INFLUENCE OF USURY LAWS. 279 

ten per cent., and from thence to eight, and thence to six, 
has, by experience, been found very beneficial to trade and 
improvement of land," &c. 

Some manufactories exist, even in California, where in- 
terest is two per cent, the month, and by reflecting on what 
kinds they are, we may see better the principle by which 
the rate of interest operates on such pursuits. The man- 
ufactures of California are such only as can not be compe- 
ted with by importation, as, for instance, architectural 
structures, gas works, railroads, turnpikes, ferries, &c. ; 
but the price charged in California for gas, freight, passage, 
&c., will exceed the price we charge, in a proportion grad- 
uated by the excess of their interest over ours. The like 
may be said of the rents that will be paid in California for 
architectural erections, and the principle will manifest itself 
in all pursuits that require capital. The price of even im- 
ported articles becomes enhanced by a high rate of interest, 
so as to compensate the merchant for the time that must 
transpire between the purchase of his goods and their con- 
version into money ; hence, after knowing the high rate of 
interest that exists in California, we need not be surprised 
at the apparently enormous price of house rent, &c., so 
long, at least, as the supply of houses, &c., shall not exceed 
the demand for them. 

THE ANTAGONISM BETWEEN LABOR AND CAPITAL. 

But the influence of the legal rate of interest extends 
beyond all the foregoing illustrations. A New- York wool- 
en manufacturer cannot continue his productions un- 
less their sale shall repay him for tiie cost of the raw mate- 
rial and the labor bestowed thereon, together with the le- 
gal rate of interest on the employed capital. Of these three 
essential ingredients, labor is the most unprotected. The 



280 THE POLITICAL A^^) ECONOMICAL 

raw materia] of nearly all fabrics possesses a price that is 
independent of the home manufacture, for it can be trans- 
ported at generally a small expense to every home market, 
and often to every foreign market; hence its price is kept 
up b}^ reference to the value of the article in the best 
market to which it can be sent ; so that every manufactu- 
rer procures his raw material in an active competition 
against the world, inveterated by rivalry and speculation. 
Disadvantages still greater apply to the borrower of money. 
He must compete, not with manufacturers only, but with 
all his countrymen ; and could the rate of interest be en- 
hanced illimitabh^ by competition, as the raw mateiial is 
enhanced in price, we can see that whether a manufactu- 
rer could compete with foreign fabrics and sustain his bu- 
siness, would depend on the price he pays for labor ; and 
labor is so dependent on local demand that the employer 
can coerce it to accept the lowest compensation that w ill 
sustain man's animal necessities. The operation of the 
principle is manifested in England. The raw material 
there, as everywhere else, is protected by the competition 
of purchasers, while money, unrestrained by usury laws, is 
protected, as everywhere, by universal competition for it ; 
and nothing is unprotected but labor. It accordingly must 
be obtained low, or many fabrics which are made for for- 
eign markets could not be manufactured at a salable price ; 
consequently the laborers are taught that marriage and its 
most natural animal incidents are too expensive a luxury 
for their condition, and that emigration and poor-houses 
are a part of their proper resources. A laborer possesses 
the theoretical power of locomotion, and may, like money 
and raw material, seek the best market ; but, practically, 
nothing is more difficult to move than labor. Besides feel- 
ings of attachment towards the place wherein we are ac- 



INFLUENCE OF USU-RY LAWS. 281 

customed to reside, a man cannot remove till he possesses 
spare capital to support him while he is travelling, and to 
discharge the expense of carriage, especially if he possess 
a wife and children. The more a man is oppressed by low 
wages, the greater will be his desire for removal, but. in the 
same degree, will be increased the impediments in procu- 
ring the means of removal ; to say nothing of the uncer- 
tainty of finding a better market when all are alike under 
the same oppressive disadvantages. And labor is further 
unable to protect itself, by reason that, unlike raw materi- 
al, which can be aggregated for transportation abroad, ev- 
ery laborer can affect the labor market by only his individ- 
ual volition, oppressed by a necessity for present suste- 
nance which forbids any prolonged contumacy ; and so 
conscious is the law that labor must continue thus depend- 
ent if we would compete with foreign industry, that any 
attempt of laborers to coerce a concert of action among 
themselves with a vievv to control wages, is deemed a con- 
spiracy punishable with fine and imprisonment ; a law 
which is founded on the same public policy as the usury 
laws, and were one law to be repealed, both ought to be. 
The antagonism of labor and capital extends, in a modified 
degree, to the superintendents and clerks of factories, the 
captains of ships, and the book-keepers of merchants. 
Lawyers, divines, and physicians are paid for their skill 
cliiefly, and hence are not within the category of persons 
who can obtain their compensation from only what remains 
after satisfying the requirements of capital. 

AS THE RATE AUGMENTS OF INTEREST, THE MOTIVE OF 
CAPITALISTS DIMINISHES FOR PERSONAL INDUSTRY. 

I will advert to only one more general effect of the rate 
of interest. The higher we make the rate, the lower will 

13* 



282 THE POLITICAL AND ECONOMICAL INFLUENCE, ETC. 

become the compensation for employing it, and conse- 
quently the less will become the inducement for active 
enterprises, no man being willing to employ his money 
personally in trade or commerce, if he can obtain, by the 
loan thereof, all that can be earned in its employment. 
Such a maximum can, of course, never be realized ; but, in 
the extreme, we can understand the approximations there- 
to. So, again, if interest were wholly interdicted, every 
possessor of money would be compelled to actively employ 
it, or live on his capital, and thus gradually dissipate it. 
When the Jews of old forbade the taking of interest, the 
motive may have been to compel all men to labor ; and no 
measure could better produce such an end. In England, 
however, an opposite policy permits capitalists to receive 
as much interest for money as can be obtained, encourag- 
ing thus the inactivity of capitalists, labor being there su- 
perabundant. In our country, a medium between these 
extremes seems best suited to our condition. We should 
not make interest so low as to discourage tlie old, the in- 
firm, and unenterprising from loaning their money to the 
healthy, the vigorous, and the enterprising; nor should we 
make interest so high as to invite active money-holders 
into inactivity, and to so diminish the earnings of mere 
labor as to check immigration and exclude laborers from 
domestic enjoyments and the other common comforts of 
civilization. Our State is prosperous, and all classes of 
its citizens ; thus evincing that our existing laws in relation 
to the interest of money are adapted to our condition ; we 
may, therefore, well be cautious how we try any change in 
so pervading an element of prosperity as the legal limita- 
tion of interest. 



THE PRESENT AND PROSPECTIVE VALUE OF GOLD. 285 



THE PPtESENT AND PROSPECTIVE VALUE OF GOLD.* 

RISE IN THE PRICE OF SILVER. 

Our laws make 10 dwt. 18 gr. of standard gold, coined 
into an eagle, equivalent to ten silver dollars ; but the dollars 
will purchase in New- York about 3 per cent, more gold 
than is contained in an eagle — the silver being in demand 
for exportation. In England, the appreciation in the value 
of silver is still more apparent, by reason of her greater 
intercourse with the continental countries, whose currency 
is wholly silver. An English sovereign contains 5 dwt. 8i 
gr. of standard gold ; and it has heretofore, in the inter- 
course between England and Amsterdam, been deemed an 
equivalent to 11 florins of silver, and 93 centimes; but 
now a sovereign cannot be exchanged in Amsterdam for 
more than 11 florins and 17 centimes. The rate of ex- 
change between England and Amsterdam is, therefore, in 
England below what has heretofore been deemed par ; and 
a like fall in London attends the exchange between Eng- 
land and every Continental country which employs silver 
as its legal currency. This fall is particularly portentous 
of a rise in the price of silver, by reason that these coun- 
tries are commercially in debt to England ; and, therefore, 
the rate of exchange ought to be in favor of England. 

In France the effect of the rise is still more apparent. 
Hitherto gold has not sought a re-coinage in France — the 
8 dwt. 7 gr., which compose a double Napoleon, being more 
valuable as bullion by H per cent, than the forty silver 
francs which the Napoleon represents ; but the premium 
is fallen to about a quarter of one per cent., while an ex- 
pectation exists that the forty francs in silver will soon com- 

* Published February 1, 1851. 



284 THE PRESENT AND PROSPECTIVE VALUE OF GOLD. 

mand a premium over the Napoleon ; and that the silver 
coins (of which nearly the whole currency is composed) 
can be retained in circulation by only discontinuing gold as 
a legal tender ; or, at least, by arresting the further coin- 
age of gold. Indeed, commissioners are now deliberating 
at Paris on this course ; hence, Frenchmen who possess 
money in England, and English merchants who are debtors 
to France, and both Frenchmen and Englishmen who 
desire to speculate out of the apprehended further rise of 
silver, are hurrying gold from England to France to obtain 
its conversion into French gold pieces, before the coinage 
shall be discontinued, and 8 dwt. 7 gr. of standard gold, in 
the form of a double Napoleon, cease from being equivalent 
to 40 silver francs. To repress the flow of gold, the Bank 
of England has advanced the minimum rate of its discounts 
to 3 per cent, (it was previously 2^), while the French 
mint, to resist the influx of gold, refuses to receive it for 
coinage after nine o'clock in the morning; and so great is 
the pressure for admission, that a person has no hope of 
ingress,, unless he take his stand at the gate of the mint 
as early as six o'clock. 

HAS SILVER RISEN OR GOLD FALLEN? 

The foregoing phenomena in the Continental exchanges 
of England, and the exportation of silver from that country 
and ours, are not conclusive proofs that silver is more val- 
uable than formerly ; for they may be produced by a fall in 
the value of gold — a supposition believed by many persons, 
and countenanced by the great gold discoveries in the ter- 
ritories of Russia and in our California. The question is 
important to us, by reason that a rise in the value of silver 
will affect us less disadvantageously than a fall in the value 
of gold. But the question is as difficult of solution as it is 



THE piiesn:nt and prospective value of gold. 285 

important. The change in the legal tender of Holland, 
from gold and silver to silver only, is adduced by some per- 
sons as a reason for a rise in silver, by occasioning therefor 
a temporary demand to supply an increased Dutch coinage ; 
while other persons deem the change of currency an evi- 
dence that the sagacious Dutchmen are conscious that gold 
is depreciating, and that they mean to cut loose therefrom, 
before other countries shall become aware that gold, the 
ship of nations, is sinking. Indeed, English economists fur- 
nish us with as many, and as cogent, proofs on one side of 
the question as the other ; showing thereby nothing reliable, 
except that they are groping in the dark for truth as much 
as we ; though the subject is more discussed in England, 
and on the European continent, than it is with us ; pro- 
duced, probably, by their superiority over us in number ot 
persons who possess leisure for speculative disquisition. 
Indeed, such a contingency as the present seems to be a 
sort of God-send to their literati — a sort of intellectual Cal- 
ifornia, to which they rush with the same ardor as our more 
material people rush to the " diggings." Leaving, then, in 
their abler hands the topics on which they have descanted, 
and leaving, for the development of time, facts which time 
alone can accurately ascertain, we will glean from the 
already well-reaped field of speculation, a few ears that 
seem to have escaped the view of other laborers. 

HOW AN APPRECIATION OF SILVER WOULD AFFECT US. 

Our legal tender being silver or gold, at the option of the 
debtor, an appreciation in the value of silver will be no more 
injurious to the man who owns gold than an appreciation in 
the value of leather. To the consumer of silver or leather, 
the rise of either may be injurious in proportion to his use 
thereof, but in no greater degree in one article than in 



286 THE PRESENT AND PROSPECTIVE VALUE OF GOLD. 

the Other. The owner of United States bonds to the amount 
of ten thousand dollars, may say he can no longer obtain 
for them ten thousand silver dollars, which he gave for the 
bonds ; but he can obtain a thousand gold eagles, which 
are worth as much as the ten thousand silver dollars were 
worth when he loaned them to the United States. His loss 
is simply a privation of the gain which he would have 
made had he retained the silver; and it is a loss which 
may be predicated equally of a rise in the price of leather, 
that he failed to purchase before its appreciation. 

A country in which silver is the only legal tender will 
be differently affected from what we are by the appreciation 
of silver. The debtors who borrowed before silver appre- 
ciated in value, will be injured by being compelled to pay 
in appreciated silver, without receiving any compensation 
for the appreciation. What the debtors thus lose the cred- 
itors will gain. All persons will gain whose property con- 
sists of silver; as, for instance, creditors generally, fixed 
annuitants, bank-stock holders, the owners of other stocks 
whose basis is money, (in contra-distinction from railroads 
and kindred stocks, whose basis is not money) ; while all 
property, except money, will be neither benefited nor in- 
jured by the change. A bushel of wheat, which could be 
sold for a dollar while silver was unappreciated, may now 
sell for as much less than a dollar as the silver has increased 
in value ; hence the change will neither enrich nor impover- 
ish the seller. These consequences, however, will not ex- 
hibit themselves in practice with the regularity and dis- 
tinctness of the operation in theory, but the practice will 
approximate towards the theory, and eventually harmonize 
with it. 



THE PRESENT AND PROSPECTIVE VALUE OF GOLD. 287 
HOW A DEPRECIATION OF GOLD WOULD AFFECT US. 

The converse of all the foreofoino; would result from a de- 
preciation in the permanent value of gold. All persons 
whose property consists of gold : namely, all the holders of 
government stocks, all creditors of every other description, 
bank-stock owners, insurance company stockholders, re- 
cipients of fixed rents and annuities, will lose to the extent 
of the depreciation of gold ; which, being a legal tender, they 
must receive at the mint valuation ; namely, at the rate of 
ten dollars for every 10 dwt. 18 gr. of standard gold. The 
effect on all other persons will be neither beneficial nor in- 
jurious. Land will rise in price, and railroad stock, ships, 
and all other property, except money ; but the rise will be 
only equivalent to the depreciation in the money. 

GOVERNMENT MIGHT PALLIATE THE EVIL. 

That the legal coins of a country should thus be subject 
to a fluctuation of value is a great practical evil, from which 
the world has heretofore been measurably exempted, by 
the long-continued sameness of value that has accompanied 
gold and silver. The man who lends a thousand dollars 
to-day, on a ten-year loan, may not know but the depreci- 
ation of gold during the loan will absorb a share of the in- 
come which he is to receive for the money ; hence a new 
element will arise in loans, a price for the use, and a com- 
pensation for the contingent depreciation of the loaned capi- 
tal ; but for the latter no means of indemnity exist. Gov- 
ernment might measurably shield creditors from such a 
a danger, by statedly increasing the quantity of gold which 
composes an eagle ; so as to compensate in quantity, from 
time to time, as depreciation of value should become cer- 
tain and permanent ; as the British Government, some 
years since, called in the guineas which had lost weight by 



288 THE PRESENT AND PROSPECTIVE VALUE OF GOLD. 

abrasion. Such a proces's would prevent the currency 
from sustaining- any great loss of value at any one time; 
and would also confine the loss to the holders of the coin 
for the time being, without entailing it, and accumulating 
it, on remote debts. But governments are usually debtors 
themselves, and will not be likely to enhance their own 
burdens. This consideration will assuredly keep the 
present standard unchanged in Great Britain, also in our. 
own country, where the debtor interest is always more 
sympathized with than the creditor interest. The same 
consideration will probably withhold France from abolish- 
ing the regulation by which 8 dwt. 7 gr. of standard gold 
are equivalent to 40 francs of silver — notwithstanding the 
change is under deliberation by a governmental committee. 
We know from history, that almost every country has, in 
its progress, deteriorated its coins, diminishing their weight 
or quality, and thereby paying its debts cheaply ; and no 
reason exists for supposing that, should nature interpose an 
equivalent remedy, it would be rejected now. 

During the suspension of specie payments by the Bank 
of England (from February 26, 1797, to May 1, 1821— 
twenty-three years), all the government fundholders, and 
other government creditors, were paid in bank-notes, 
though the difference between them and gold increased in 
1814 to 25 per cent, in favor of gold. The apparent in- 
justice was, however, greater than the real ; by reason that 
the suspension operated on gold like a monopoly. Gold 
became a scarce article ; hence persons who needed it for 
exportation, for manufacture, or for any purposes that 
bank-notes, the domestic money, would not subserve, had 
to purchase gold as merchandise, at the price it had attained 
by the well-known laws of scarcity. 



THE PRESENT AND PROSPECTIVE VALUE OF GOLD. 289 

SILVER AND GOLD ARE CONTROLLED IN VALUE BY THE PRINCI- 
PLES WHICH CONTROL THE VALUE OF OTHER ARTICLES. 

Such being the dangers which some persons apprehend 
in our monetary system, a brief consideration may not be 
untimely, of the principles which regulate the inherent as 
well as the temporary value of gold and silver. Their in- 
herent value depends on the cost of their production. If 
gold shall be procurable in California at less cost than here- 
tofore, its inherent value will be less than heretofore, pro- 
vided the quantity thus procurable shall be sufficient to 
supply the accustomed demand therefor. This proviso is 
an essential condition, because the facility with which gold 
is procurable in California will only enrich the procurers, 
without diminishing the intrinsic value of gold, should the 
amount procurable exist in too small a quantity to over- 
supply the quantity of gold which the world is accustomed to 
use. In Russia, gold has been for some years procurable at 
less cost than it had been ; but the quantity thus procured was 
not sufficient to create a surplus, hence not sufficient to re- 
duce the value. The cheapness with which the Russian gold 
was procured, inured therefore only to the private gain of the 
procurers . That gold is obtainable in California with unu- 
sual facility, and consequent cheapness, cannot be doubted 
(sixty millions of dollars worth having been shipped from San 
Francisco in fifteen and a half months) ; but whether the 
quantity shall be sufficient to over-supply the accustomed 
uses to which gold is applied, remains to be ascertained by 
experience. Gold, as heretofore discovered, possesses the 
aristocratic peculiarities of gems, rather than the character 
of metals ; being always found uncompounded with other 
minerals ; though it is occasionally surrounded by inferiors. 
The gold which is found in California possesses the accus- 



290 THE PRESENT AND PROSPECTIVE VALUE OF COLD. 

tomed virgin purity, and occupies the position in which 
gold has generally been found in all other places ; thus 
evincing, that nature has not in California departed from her 
accustomed analogies. May we not, then, fairly presume 
that all other incidents attendant heretofore on gold will 
also occur in California ; that gold exists there only super- 
ficially, to any great extent ; that the superficial supply 
will eventually become exhausted, as it has been in other 
localities, and the procurement of gold revert to its former 
costliness ? 

AS GOLD BECOMES LESS VALUABLE ITS SOURCES OF SUPPLY 

DIMINISH. 

Many gold mines exist whose product will barely com- 
pensate for the cost of working them, while some are aban- 
doned, by reason that the gold they yield will not pay for 
the cost of its procurement ; should, therefore, the gold fa- 
cilities of California diminish the value of gold, the dimi- 
nution will cause the abandonment of many mines which 
are scarcely profitable at the present value of gold. The 
discontinued mines will augment in number, with every 
advance in the progress of depreciation that gold shall ex- 
perience ; a process which will operate as a sort of coun- 
terpoise, or resisting force, in any depreciation of gold that 
may arise from its over-production. Another resisting 
force exists in the rapid enlargement of the area of com- 
merce, the increasing population of many great countries, 
and the steadily increasing uses of gold occasioned by these 
and kindred causes : — " The United States, with their pop- 
ulation of 25,000,000, doubling every twenty-five years — 
Russia, with its population of 66,000,000, doubling every 
forty years — and Great Britain, with its population of 
29,000,000, doubling in about the same time, and its ex- 
ports and imports doubling in thirty years." 



' THE PRESENT AND PROSPECTIVE VALUE OF GOLD. 291 
EFFECT OF QUANTITY ON PERMANENT VALUE. 

On few subjects is the practical knowledge of men more 
correct, and the speculative knovvledge more indefinite, 
than on the relation which quantity bears to value. 
The quantity of gold which may exist in California will 
not inevitably influence its permanent value, though 
it may affect its price temporarily. The quantity of 
gold we may assume to be illimitable, but all that will 
be j^rocured thereof v/ill be the quantity wliose procure- 
ment shall remunerate the procurers. The cost of pro- 
curement must, therefore, constitute thenltimate regulator 
of the value of gold. A remarkable connection exists, 
however, between the quantity in which we possess any 
article and the cost of its procurement: and hence, proba- 
bly, has arisen the notion that value depends on quantity. 
We possess every article in a quantity inverse the cost of 
its procurement;* for instance, if you inform a man that 
iron is procurable from the earth at a less cost than brass, 
he may know with certainty that we possess more iron than 
brass, though possibly the earth may contain within its re- 
cesses more brass than iron. We know that men have al- 
ways dug brass from the earth, and probably always will ; 
therefore the quantity thereof which we possess to-day is 
not limited by the quantity in the earth, except on the 
principle above asserted : that the quantity which we pro- 
cure of any article is governed by the cost of its procure- 
ment. 

Men use most the articles which they procure most easily. 

But why do men procure every natural production in a 
quantity inverse to the cost of its procurement? Because 

* The market price of any article (its price to-day compared with its price last year) is 
indeed governed by its scarcity or plenty, with reference to the quantity of it we are 
accustomed to possess; but the intrinsic value of the article (its permanent relation in 
price to any other article) is not governed by the quantity in which mankind possess 
the two articles, but by the relative cost of their production. 



292 THE PRESENT AND PROSPECTIVE VALUE OF GOLD. 

we use every article in a degree proportioned to the facility 
of its procurement. This is an instinct of our nature — an 
organic predisposition, strikingly exemplified in the numer- 
ous uses to which we apply silver, beyond the uses to which 
we apply gold, and -in the still more numerous uses to 
which we apply brassTthan silver, iron than brass, stone 
than iron, and water than stone. In every country the 
articles most easily procured come to be deemed the ne- 
cessaries of life, because we conform in our habits to the 
use of articles in a degree proportioned to the facility of 
their procurement. The principle is well exemplified in 
our plank roads — a use of plank which clearly derives its 
origin from the comparatively small cost with which plank 
is procurable, as compared with its cost in England, where 
no such use of plank is adopted. In some parts of our 
country, wood supplies the place of stone and brick in 
building, and of coal for fuel. The wicks of candles are 
composed of wood, and the hinges and latches of doors : it 
constitutes in such localities the great necessary of life. 

EFFECT OF aUANTITY ON TEMPORARY VALUE. 

But though the permanent value of gold, and every 
article, is thus governed, not by its quantity in nature, but 
by the cost of its procurement, the temporary value (present 
price) is continually governed by the proportion which the 
quantity we possess of any article bears to the quantity 
that we are accustomed to use. When the crop of coffee 
happens to be much less than the accustomed crop, a suffi- 
ciency no longer exists to supply the accustomed uses ; but 
as every man is naturally solicitous to obtain his accus- 
tomed quantity, the demand for coffee will become active, 
and the holders of it will be stimulated to enhance the 
price. The advance in price will induce most persons to 



THE PRESENT AND PROSPECTIVE VALUE OF GOLD. 293 

be unusually frugal in the use of coffee, and some persons 
will abstain wholly from its use; and thus the small crop is 
eked out. 

Now, if we can suppose that the annual production of 
coffee shall, from any reason, continue for a few years to 
be equally small, the enhanced price will not continue. 
Every man will be accustomed to the quantity to which 
the scarcity induced him to limit himself, and therefore 
coffee will no longer be deemed scarce — the demand will 
subside, and beonly equivalent to the supply ; and the un- 
usual price will subside with the unusual demand. When 
the Dutch possessed all the countries which produced nut- 
megs, they were accused of annually destroying a portion 
of the crop, to create annually an artificial scarcity. But 
the stratagem could realize its object occasionally only ; 
men would soon become habituated to the restricted sup- 
ply, and would cease from competing for more : the article 
would then be no longer scarce, nor command a price 
dictated by an insufficient supply. This foolish story has 
been repeated by the gravest writers, who seem not to 
have been aware of the fallacy on which its alleged prac- 
tice is founded. Potatoes are probably experiencing in 
Ireland a permanent change of quantity. When the crop 
first became less than ordinary, the price rose by competi- 
tion among purchasers, who severally desired their accus- 
tomed supply, deeming it essential, almost, to their exist- 
ence. The high price thus induced influenced many per- 
sons to substitute Indian meal, and other articles, in i^ace 
of potatoes ; and now the people of Ireland are becoming 
so accustomed to the diminution in the potato crop, that 
the quantity produced is no longer enhanced in price by 
the principle of scarcity. 

Consequences opposite to the foregoing will accompany 



294 THE PRESENT AND PROSPECTIVE VALUE OF GOLD. 

any surplus production of gold, or of any other article. 
When more gold shall be produced than will supply the 
accustomed uses, the holders of gold will be more solicitous 
to part from it than others to purchase ; and the principle 
of over-abundance or plenty will cause the price to fall in 
a degree proportioned to the over-abundance. 

But as every article is used by man in a degree governed 
by the cost of its procurement, the uses to which w^e apply 
gold will increase as its costliness shall diminish ; a process 
which continually tends to mitigate the fall in value of any 
article whose production happens to become augmented. 
The abundance of sheep in some parts of our country in- 
troduced the practice of melting them for their tallow, and 
a superabundance of hogs caused the invention of lard oil. 
We use peaches to feed hogs and make brandy, as the 
grape is used in other countries to make wine ; but in both 
cases the use is dictated by the quantity in which the arti- 
cle is possessed. We use iron to make roads, and cotton 
to make cordage — uses which were not thought of when 
the articles were comparatively difficult of production, and 
consequently small in quantity. 

THE EXTENT TO WHICH DEPRECIATION CAN PERMANENTLY 

ARRIVE. 

We may imagine, however, that the quantity of new 
gold will increase as California shall increase annually in 
population. Should this occur, and the supply keep con- 
tinually in advance of old and new uses, the depreciation 
must continue to go on, till the price of gold shall eventu- 
ally become so reduced as no longer to pay the cost of 
further production. This is the minimum price which gold 
can permanently attain, and at this point further deprecia- 
tion will be arrested by a cessation of gold increase; and 



THE PEESENT AND PROSPECTIVE VALUE OF GOLD. 295 

after various vibrations, gold will become again measurably 
fixed in a price graduated by the cost of producing it. 

THE PROGRESS OF ANY SUPPOSABLE DEPRECIATION. 

We find, therefore, that the extent of permanent depre- 
ciation which gold can suffer, from the discoveries of Cali- 
fornia and other places, will depend on the cost at which 
gold can be procured. The progress of depreciation in 
any article, may be likened to the circles produced in a 
pond by the descent of a stone. The descent is imme- 
diately followed by a disturbance of the water within a 
definite small circle. The first circle is succeeded by a 
second, which is larger than the first ; the second is suc- 
ceeded by a third, which is larger than the second ; and so 
progressively, till the disturbing force becomes exhausted, 
or so diminished as to produce no longer;, any sensible efiect. 
Now, to profit by the metaphor, we must remember that 
the pond which California gold disturbs is the civilized 
world, and, in that particular, gold differs from articles of 
a restricted local use. The disturbing cause has been in 
active operation some sixteen months, during which period 
some sixty million dollars' worth of gold has been exported 
from San Francisco, and the world is just beginning to 
debate whether the effect is at all apparent beyond the 
immediate circle of the gold diggings. The effect there is 
apparent in all operations and things in which California 
labor is an element — the price of labor being necessarily 
graduated by the amount that it can earn in gold digging, 
an employment free to all persons. If, then, we knew pre- 
cisely the money price of day labor in and around the 
diggings, w^e might estimate pretty accurately the average 
quantity of gold that a man can reasonably expect to find 
daily at the placers — the two being naturally equivalent, or, 



296 THE PRESENT AND PROSPECTIVE VALUE OF GOLD. 

at least, regulators of each other. The high prices which 
have been given in California for flour, pork, merchandise, 
&c , imported thither, depend mainly on a different princi- 
ple — on the demand beyond the supply, and the consequent 
competition of purchasers, stimulated, no doubt, and as- 
sisted by the abundance of money, or its equivalent, gold 
dust ; but not proceeding from the abundance as a neces- 
sary effect. Should any articles of merchandise be brought 
into California, in excess of the accustomed wants of the 
inhabitants, the articles will fall in price to an extent 
governed by the excess, notwithstanding the abundance of 
gold. 

In California, therefore, the quantity of §old which can 
be picked up daily, is, at present, a measure of the value of 
day labor — a condition which seems to conflict with the 
theory, that the v^ue of gold is regulated by the cost of 
its production. The discrepancy is occasioned by the ex- 
portability of gold, thereby making its value in California 
dependent, not on the facility of its production there, but 
on its value in places to which it can be exported. Gold 
will continue to retain in California its European value, 
till the quantity received from California shall create in 
Europe a surplus of gold beyond the accustomed uses 
therefor. Nay, before gold can depreciate in California, 
or anywhere, an excess of gold must be experienced in 
every place that commerce can reach, gold being the most 
exportable of articles, by reason of its great value in a small 
bulk and weight — circumstances which assimilate it with 
the electric fluid, and make its transits easy, and relatively 
costless ; and which have, accordingly, always caused it to 
be an almost perfect common measure of value between 
the most remote countries. Our State is the recipient of 
nearly half the gold that is exported from California, yet 



THE PRESENT AND PROSPECTIVE VALUE OF GOLD. 297 

gold in New- York retains all its accustomed value; unless, 
indeed, we assume the question in controversy, and say 
that the premium which is paid for silver is occasioned by 
a depreciation of gold. All the gold we receive, we can 
still employ in our accustomed remittances to Great 
Britain, at its accustomed value here and there, in liquida- 
tion of debts contracted before the influx of gold. The 
surplus which may occur anywhere will be first apparent 
in the creditor nations of the earth, of which England is 
the greatest, and to which the exigencies cf commerce 
cause it to flow ; still, in England, the depreciation of gold 
is as much a controverted question as it is with us. 

GOLD COINS POSSESS A VALUE DISTINCT FROM THE PRICE 
OF BULLION. 

But whatever depreciation may occ^ur to gold as bullion, 
the effect to every person, arising from the depreciation of 
bullion, is different from the depreciation of gold as coin. 
The man whose property consists of debts due to him, of 
bank stock, fixed annuities, or money in any other shape, 
is not compelled to receive bullion at any higher price than 
its market value. Coined gold he is bound to receive 
at its legal rate, but the coin possesses 'to the receiver 
an inherent value, by reason that it can liquidate all 
existing debts, national and individual, and which debts 
were contracted before the depreciation of gold. Our 
Wall-street brokers will occasionally purchase, at par, a 
stock known to be worthless, but the purchase is made to 
fulfill a former contract for the delivery of the stock ; hence 
it is worth par to the purchaser, if he cannot obtain it for 
less. Our old Continental paper money became, eventually, 
worth in silver only 1 per cent, of its nominal value ; yet 
when the bills were first emitted, and were a legal tender 

14 



298 THE PRESENT AND PEOSPECTIVE VALUE OF GOJ>D. 

in discharge of specie-contracted debts, they retained a 
value nearly equal to silver, so long as such a use existed 
for them. When the notes would eventually exchange for 
silver at only 1 per cent, of their nominal value, the debts 
for which they were then a legal tender had been con- 
tracted on a basis graduated by the depreciation of the 
bills. A bank may to-day become worthless, yet if its 
notes in circulation exceed not in amount the solvent debts 
due to the bank, and which can be paid by the bank notes, 
the notes will continue to sell at nearly, or quite, their 
lominal value, being as useful as specie to the bank's 
debtors. But habit also attaches some fixedness to the 
character of money. When the revisers of our State 
laws, some twenty-three years ago, changed a gross hun- 
dred-weight from 112 pounds avoirdupois to 100 pounds, 
and a ton from 2,240 pounds to 2,000 pounds, they dimin- 
ished the intrinsic value of a ton of hay nearly one-eighth ; 
but people had been so long accustomed to a given price 
for a ton of hay, that the change in the intrinsic value of 
the ton has ever since inured to the benefit of the producer. 
Thus, gold coins might depreciate greatly in intrinsic value, 
before a man would pass a gold eagle for less value, in 
other articles, than he is accustomed to receive for it. We 
know that in 1834 our gold coinage was reduced in value 
some 6| per cent., yet the reduction has ever since been 
undiscoverable, except when the coins are exported and 
sold as bullion. The distinction between coin and bullion 
is not unseen in France, as we learn from a recent paper 
of M. Dieriohx, the Director of the Paris Mint, and com- 
municated to the French Commission, which is deliberating 
on a cessation in France of the coinage of gold. M. 
Dierichx speaks of the existing coinage as possessing a 
value " guaranteed by the stamp of the State." Now if 



THE PRESENT AND PROSPECTIVE VALUE OF GOLD. 299 

we consider the public debt of Great Britain, four thou- 
sand million of dollars, besides the public debt of our own 
National and State Governments, and the immense indebt- 
edness of the inhabitants of both countries, and the debts 
of corporations, and which are all payable during a long 
futurity, and can be liquidated by gold coins at their pris- 
tine value, we may see that a person whose property con- 
sists of money, directly or indirectly, need not fear any 
sudden change in the value of his property ; and probably 
no man exists who will be able to feel, at the close of life, 
that the change has impaired his fortune in any sensible 
degree. 

We have purposely confined the above view to our 
country and Great Britain, excluding France and all the 
other nations of Europe, Asia and America, that possess a 
gold coinage, and whose operations will, by the principles 
above referred to, aid in guaranteeing permanency to the 
value of gold. Such countries may possibly adopt here- 
after a coinage wholly of silver, but we know England and 
our country will not, for reasons already explained ; and 
for the further reason, as relates to our country, that, 
possessing the sources of gold, w^e can no more expect her 
to discourage the use of gold, than we can expect China to 
discourage the consumption of tea. 

CONCLUSION. 

But we may be told that gold coins cannot retain a value 
much above gold bullion, by reason that a spurious coin- 
age of gold cannot be prevented, should the price of bullion 
fall much below the value of coin. The spurious coins 
will be made out of the same standard gold as the genuine, 
and of equal weight, and be incapable of detection. The 
objection is probably correct, and it will doubtless prevent 



800 THE PRESENT AND PROSPECTIVE VALUE OF GOLD. 

a cessation of coinage by any government which retains gold 
as a legal currency. Still we believe that the uses and 
principles which we have enumerated will uphold all the 
gold that can be coined, and consequently keep the price 
of gold bullion from any depreciation, except the most 
gradual and insensible. Yet, should gold be found in Cali- 
fornia, or in the Ural and Altai mountains, or anywhere, 
in quantities enough to supply the known uses therefor, 
and be procurable at less cost than gold has heretofore 
been procured, its value will be ultimately lowered in pro- 
portion to the diminution in its cost. Many persons believe 
that a depreciation has been long in progress. It may now 
be somewhat accelerated in its course, but it will still 
creep on, like old age, noiselessly and imperceptibly ; and 
we shall become conscious of the change, if change it 
shall, only by comparing together long separated periods. 



TITLE AND PLAN OF A NEW DICTIONAKY * 

We are taught many dead languages and several of the 
living, while our own English is acquired accidentally, or, 
at most, incidentally ; and while we have collected and 
methodized Egyptian hieroglyphics, our own words are un- 

* This plan was published in 1830, in a pamphlet, and soon thereafter it constituted an 
address in the City of New-York, to the " American Lyceum," and was published among 
the proceedings of the Lyceum. How far it has been operative, the author knows not; 
but since its publication, several school books by Towne and others have supplied some 
of its requirements. Webster's Dictionary, also, in its late editions, by Professor Good- 
rich, has been much improved by several approximations to the plan, especially as re- 
gards synonyms; but the most remarkable approximation is Roget's Thesaurus, publish- 
ed in London in 1832. The plan is, however, still unexecuted to the extent that utility 
requires, the plan contemplating an improved dictionary in full, with, all the aids neces- 
sary to make it a complete Index to our language. 



TITLE AND PLAN OF A NEW DICTIONARY. 801 

collected, except in the Babel of an alphabetical arrange- 
naent. The unconsciousness with which we have borne 
this great inconvenience posterity may deem as wonderful 
as we deem the patient endurance of smoke by our ances- 
tors — chimneys having been but recently introduced into 
England at the time of Queen Elizabeth. 

To our social language, including so much of the scien- 
tific as general scholars ought to be acquainted with, my 
remarks will be limited. Its extent, as collected by Web- 
ster, is seventy thousand words, and these all of us are 
supposed to know. On this false assumption is founded 
the alphabetical arrangement of our dictionaries. To 
teach us the words themselves lexicography has never 
made an attempt. Orthography, etymology, definition, and 
orthoepy, were the objects of Johnson, and these continue 
still the circle of lexicography. Even our countryman has 
confined himself to these subjects, and finding nothing un- 
performed therein of sufficient extent to satisfy his emula- 
tion, he has begun to new-model the orthography, and bring 
it back to the confusion from which Johnson extricated it. 
His change is founded on the vain supposition that stabil- 
ity can be produced by attaining perfection ; while it is at- 
tainable by only a prudent acquiescence in imperfection. 
On no subject is unanimity of opinion possible, except by a 
forbearance of opposition. 

The energy of our language consists chiefly in possess- 
ing words in sets ; a substantive, adjective, verb, and 
adverb, constituting a set : as, knowledge, knowing, know, 
knowingly. When the difl^erent parts of speech are, like 
the above, derived from one word, alphabetical precedence 
places them so nearly together in our dictionaries that a 
reference to one of them discloses the others. But in nu- 
merous cases the different parts of speech are not thus de- 
rived, and we have no systematic means of learning their 



802 TITLE AND PLAN OF A NEW DICTIONARY. 

existence : for instance, can the verb to vanish, be express- 
ed adjectively ? This would be deemed a strange question 
if propounded to any youth. It is a branch ot^ learning he 
has never heard of. I lament, however, that our dictiona- 
ries do not teach it. In some of them we find, under the 
word vanish, its preterite and participle ; why should we 
not find, also, that its adjective is evanescent. Can the sub- 
stantive Jlour, be expressed adjectively ? By looking at 
the word flour in our dictionaries I should like to discover 
an answer; but they attempt no such information. We 
may expect to see floury, but we shall find it not. The 
word, however, will soon be legalized. Unacquaintance 
with existing words is constantly changing our language. 
When lexicographers reject the word floury, it would pro- 
bably never force its admission, if they would state under 
flour what its adjective is. 

If a youth should ask if the word cobweb could be ex- 
pressed adjectively, or the word summer, or spring, or tree, 
or son, the answer would be a mockery, should we refer 
him to a dictionary. Where is he to look? A lexicogra- 
pher might say to students, with reference to his defini- 
tions, what a celebrated cookery book says of cooking a 
hare: "first catch it." We must catch the word before 
the lexicographer's definition can aid us in learning that 
araneous is cobweb, adjectively ; that estival is summer, ad- 
jectively ; that vernal is spring, adjectively ; that arboreous 
is tree, adjectively ; and that filial is son, adjectively. 

In our language, a word has usually several adjectives. 
Copper has the English derivative coppery, and the Latin 
derivatives cuperous, consisting of copper ; and eruginous, 
partaking of the nature of copper. Iron has the adjective 
irony; also chalybeate, impregnated with iron; ferrugin- 
ous, partaking of the particles of iron, and ferreous, con- 
sisting of iron. 



TITLE AND PLAN OF A NEW DICTIONARY. 303 

Bark (the rind of a tree) has, in addition to barky, corti- 
cated, resembling bark ; corticose, full of bark ; and corti- 
cal. Cold has gelid, very cold ; frigid, which is cold when 
applied to the feelings ; and frigorific, producing cold ; also 
algific and algid. 

I am far from wishing that a dictionary should be learn- 
ed by rote. When a person knows what information his 
library contains, and where any item of it may be found, 
the library becomes almost as much a part of his personal 
knowledge as if the whole were transferred to his memory. 
A learned man is an index of books, rather than a trans- 
cript : a result which is a compromise between the fin- 
itude of our faculties and the infinity of learning. In 
compliance with this compromise, books are usually fur- 
nished with indexes ; but dictionaries, the most heteroge- 
neous of books, and the most repugnant to memory, receive 
no such expedients. Some languages may need them not ; 
but our language, a compound of every tongue, will never 
be known in its copiousness, and hence will never become 
stable, till some artificial means shall reveal to us the words 
which we possess, and at the moment when we need the 
revelation. 

All I have said of adjectives is equally applicable to sub- 
stantives, verbs, and adverbs. Can the adjective tender 
be expressed verbially ? Can the substantive pauper ? 
Few of our youth probably know that intenerate and depau- 
perate are the verbs. To numerous verbs, like the above, 
lexicography furnishes no guide. Indoctrinate is the verb 
of doctrine ; denude, of naked ; imposthumate, of abscess ; 
acclimate, of climate ; intimidate, of timid ; anglicize, of 
English; tabulate, of arithmetical tables. 

Our language is less rich in adverbs than in any other class 
of words. It contains them, however, more copiously than 



304 TITLE AND PLAN OF A NEW DICTIONARY. 

is usually recollected when their use is needed ; hence, the 
use of the uncouth compound, side-by-side, when we have 
the adverb abreast. 

The foregoing are but apartof the classification of which 
words are susceptible. Suicide enables me to express with 
a word what, without that word, I must employ a sentence 
to express. The energy of a language consists chiefly in 
such words ; but here, also, chance alone directs us to a 
knowledge of them. Have we a word which signifies the 
murder of a poet? Could we resort to our dictionaries and 
find the answer under the word poet, it would constitute 
the guide which our language, in this particular, requires. 
Have we a word which signifies that man is constitution- 
ally liable to commit sin ? We possess no means of know- 
ing, unless we accidentally meet with peccable, which is the 
required word. Virility is restricted to man ; have we a 
kindred word applicable to woman ? Have we a word 
that signifies a woman-hater? It is in all our dictionaries, 
and could we find it under the word woman, we should 
possess the guide of which lexicography is now deficient. 
Possessing two eyes is binocular — two angles is biangular 
— two wings is bipennated — two horns is bicornous — pro- 
ducing two animals at a birth is biparous. Why should we 
not be referred to these, under the words eye, wing, an- 
gle, &c. ? 

Our language, so far from being the disconnected mass 
which dictionaries exhibit, possesses important relations 
besides those which I have enumerated. War is the cor- 
relative of peace, potent of impotent, desecrate of con- 
secrate, analogous of anomalous, dissonant of consonant, 
apposite of opposite, immemorable of memorable, horizon- 
tal of vertical, patent of latent, immit of emit, diverge of 
converge, prospective of retrospective. The energy which 



TITLE AND PLAN OF A NEW DICTIONARY. 305 

is produced by the contrast of opposite words occasions 
their frequent conjunction; but we have no means, except 
chance, of acquiring a knowledge of their existence ; but 
our dictionaries should be so improved, that by looking, for 
instance, at symmetry, we should learn that asymmetry is 
its opposite. 

Another important relation of words to each other, is as 
negatives and affirmatives. By looking in our dictiona- 
ries at the word one, we ought to be able to learn thatmul- 
tiplicate is more than one. Laudable should teach us its 
negative, illaudable ; evident, its negative, inevident ; de- 
vout, its negative, indevout. Fire should teach us that un- 
inflammuble is an incapability of being fired. Decay should 
teach us the word indefectible ; break should teach us in- 
frangible ; weep should teach us illachrymable, and taste 
should teach us intastable. 

Synonyms, also, we ought to possess a similar means of 
knowing. Every vulgar word and every indelicate, how 
gross soever, possesses inoffensive synonyms. Numerous 
synonyms bear evidence of having originated from igno- 
rance of existing words, as incommode, discommode ; un- 
acquaintance, disacquaintance ; unmortgage, dismortgage ; 
unmask, dismask; incongruity, discongruity ; unactive, in- 
active ; unmixable, unmiscible ; unlimited, illimited ; ille- 
gal, unlawful ; unpolite, impolite. 

Another class of synonyms yield us a choice of eu- 
phony — as, surname, patronymic; heathen, ethnic; gladia- 
tor, agonistes ; icy, glacial ; heat, calidity ; next, proxi- 
mate ; heavenly, celestial ; southern, austral ; northern, 
arctic ; &c. 

Words are susceptible of other classifications, at which I 
will merely glance. For instance, to act, to react, to coact, 
to counteract, should, I think, be all collected in our dic- 

14* 



806 TITLE AND PLAN OF A NEW DICTIONARY. 

tionarles under the verb to act. We possess nearly fifty 
words which thus modify action, as enact, re-enact, actu- 
ate, &c. How far the references should be extended, is a 
question for the exercise of judgment. 

Under the word digestion, I should like arranged its kin- 
dred words, peptic, eupeptic, dyspeptic, &c. 

Under the word death, — euthanasia, posthumous, demise, 
defunct, &c. 

Under the word day, — ephemeral, diurnal, triduan, dia- 
ry, &c. 

Under the word murder, — patricide, sororicide, deicide, 
infanticide, tyrannicide, &c. 

Under transparent, — opaque, pellucid, translucent, &c. 

Under visible, — sapid, tangible, audible, odorous, &c. . 

Under shoe, — calceated, discalceated, &c. 

Under snatch, — ereption, arreptitious, &c. 

Under geography, — chorography, hydrography, topogra- 
phy, cosmography, &c. 

Under opticks, — dioptricks, catoptricks, &c. 

Under chain, — interchain, unchain, catenarian, cate- 
nate, &c. 

Under carnivorous, — granivorous, piscivorous, graminiv- 
orous, &c. 

In short, I desire a complete index to our language, so 
that a person who refers to any word may see all the 
words with which it is connected in signification ; — may 
see also how the word can be expressed substantively, ad- 
jectively, verbially, and adverbially; and may see its sy- 
nonyms, its correlatives, its negatives, and affirmatives. 
This is no visionary suggestion, nor does it involve great 
labor or learning. I have proceeded far in the construc- 
tion of such a dictionary without its having occupied more 
than the evenings of six months. I procured two blank 



TITLE AND PLAN OF A NEW DICTIONAKY. 307 

folio books. Each is the size of a volume of newspapers. 
On the outer edge of every second page, the book-binder 
pasted a column, cut from an English dictionary. Hav- 
ing a whole dictionary thus formed of single columns, with 
a blank margin of almost two folio pages to every column, 
I took another dictionary, and with a scissors cut out, for 
instance, the word abacus, with its definition. This word 
purports to be a counting-table. I pasted it in my diction- 
ary against ihe verb to count. But abacus is also ''the 
uppermost member of a column." I, therefore, cut an- 
other abacus, with its definition, from a supplemental dic- 
tionary, and pasted it into mine, against the word column. 
After a little familiarity with the labor, and with the as- 
sistance of my children, to whom it was a pleasant and in- 
structive amusement, I could generally cut out two hun- 
dred words of an evening, and place them appropriately in 
my dictionary. I was soon surprised at the numerous re- 
lations, connexions, and dependencies which words bear 
to each other, and at the number of useful words of whose 
existence I had been ignorant. On looking, for instance, 
at the word colour, I had collated aside of it thirty-eight 
words : — lutarious, the colour of mud ; citrine, the colour 
of lemon ; philomot, the colour of a dry leaf; festucine, 
the colour of straw, &c. In Johnson's definitions of famil- 
iar words, constant evidences occur of a desire to reveal 
unusual words. So little, however, is this beneficial de- 
sign appreciated, that a recent newspaper adduces, for rid- 
icule, Johnson's definition of net-work. The definition says, 
that net-work is, " anything reticulated or decussated.'' 
The news-writer may have been indebted to the definition 
for a knowledge that our language contains the words 
whose use he ridicules ; and for such information alone 
they were doubtless used by Johnson, A knowledge of 



308 TITLE AND PLAN OF A NEW DICTIONARY. 

these words is important, for we cannot express either 
net-work or net, adjectively, but by reticulated, or a mod- 
ification of tbat word ; nor does Johnson's Dictionary, or 
Walker's, or Sheridan's, contain a word that will express 
net, verbially, but by a modification of decussated. 

The dictionary which I attempted to compile was not 
the 'suggestion of knowledge, but of ignorance, In striv- 
ing after conciseness in my occasional compositions, I had 
often found that a phrase could be expressed by a single 
word ; but when I desired to express a phrase, how was I 
to know whether or not our language contained any equiv- 
alent word ? To acquire an » English dicitonary by 
rote would not insure my object, for I might not recollect 
the precise word at the moment its use became necessary. 
For my own information, therefore, I wi&hed to collate 
the contents of a dictionary. The production is not in- 
tended for the public, hence I confined the collocation to 
words that are useful to my own degree of knowledge ; but 
I publish the plan 1 pursued, hoping that it may gain the 
attention of persons who possess leisure to execute it fully, 
and skill to improve it. An unacquaintance with our own 
language is a penalty which every man sufl^ers for an un- 
acquaintance with Greek and Latin, to say nothing of the 
disadvantage of an unacquaintance with modern foreign 
languages ; but this penalty will be removed by such a dic- 
tionary as I have sketched. And, though, 1 have spoken 
of a dictionary only, the difl^erent classes of words may 
easily constitute one or more useful school-books, and to 
such a use also, I hope they will, in time, be applied. 



THE BANK. 809 



BA^^KING.-THE DUTIES OF A BANKER, AND HIS 
PERSONAL REQUISITES THEREFOR.* 

PART I. 

THE BANK OF DISCOUNT OR INTEREST. 

Banking consists, principally, in lending money at the 
legal rate of interest, and sometimes, under. The loans are 
called discounts, because the interest is paid in advance, 
and deducted from the amount of the note. But if a bank 
were to deduct seven dollars from a hundred-dollar note, 
payable a year after date, the bank would receive seven 
dollars for a loan of only ninety-three dollais. To avoid 
such a result, which is, probably, an excess beyond the 
legal rate of seven per cent, interest, the bank pays ninety- 
three dollars and forty-six cents for the note, because that 
sum, if placed on interest for a year, will become a hun- 
dred dollars, just the amount of the note. Formerly all the 
banks of our State would have deducted seven dollars from 
the note, and such a mode of computation has been ad- 
judged in England to be legal, and has been twice thus 
adjudged by our Supreme Court. But several years ago, 
in a case before the Court of Errors, the then Chancellor 
stated, incidentally, that he deemed such a computation 
usurious. Since then all the banks in the State, except 
some, or all, in the City of New- York, have, from timidity 
or caution, adopted the modified calculation, as above ex- 
emplified, even when calculating interest on notes that are 

* This summary of banking was first published in 1849. A man who learns what will 
facilitate the procurement of bank loans will often be able to shape his business to the 
required standard, and be thus aided ; loans not being dispensed capriciously or gratui- 
tously, as some persons suppose. 



810 THE BANK. 

to mature in two or three months. If, however, the original 
mode of calculating is defensible at law (some eminent 
lawyers insist it is defensible), the legaUty ought to be 
established by adjudication or legislation, for the benefit of 
the banks who refrain from that mode of computing dis- 
count, and for the safety of such as hazard the computation.* 

DIFFERENCE AMONG BANKS AS TO THE ALLOWABLE RATE OF 

DISCOUNT. 

The safety-fund banks of our State are restricted, in 
the computation of interest, to six per cent, the year on notes 
and drafts that become payable in sixty days or less from 
the time of the discount ; but what are termed free banks 
are permitted to take seven per cent. In the early periods 
of banking, when banks w^ere located in only large com- 
mercial cities, nearly all loans were of the above short 
description ; and as no mode of computing six per cent, 
discount will make the interest exceed the legal rate of 
seven per cent., banks took the whole of such discount in 
advance ; hence, probably, arose the practice of deducting 
in advance the seven per cent, also, on loans that exceeded 
sixty days in duration ; the question of usury being either 
unthought of or deemed inapplicable to such transactions. 
ISo, probably, originated the practice of computing sixty 
days as the sixth part of a year in all calculations of bank 
discounts. The computation resulted in no usury while 
applied to six per cent, loans, but subsequently, when, from 
habit or inadvertence, sixty days were called by banks the 
sixth part of a year, in seven per cent, calculations, and 
ninety days were called the fourth part of a year, all the 
banks of the State, about twenty-five years ago, suddenly 

* Our Court of Appeals has recently decided that interest may be taken in advance on 
paper which has four months to run before maturity. 



THE BANK. 811 

discov^ered. by decision of the Supreme Court, founded on 
the computation of nyiety days as a quarter of a year, that 
nearly all the bank securities then existing were void in 
law ; and at least one bank lost largely by the discovery. 

THE PROFITS TO A BANK FROM ITS BANK NOTES AND 
DEPOSITES. 

A bank which should possess a capital limited to a hun- 
dred thousand dollars, could lend only a hundred thousand 
dollars, if it possessed neither bank notes of its own cre- 
ation, nor deposites of other persons' money ; hence, such 
a bank could gain but six per cent, the year on the capital, 
if its loans were made on securities that would mature in 
sixty days, or but seven per cent, if its loans were made 
on long securities. But from this six or seven per cent, 
would have to be deducted the salaries of the bank's 
officers, the rent of its banking-house, its stationery, fuel, 
taxes, etc., so as to leave of its income, to be divided among 
its stockholders, not more than from three to five per cent, 
the year ; a dividend smaller than the productiveness of 
capital in other occupations, and, consequently, destructive 
to the continuance of banking. 

By means, however, of lending bank .notes of its own 
creation, such a bank may be able to lend much more than 
the amount of its capital, and increase its profits accord- 
ingly. And if the borrowers, or other persons, will depos- 
ite with the bank a portion of their money, the bank can 
lend, also, some part of these deposites, and thereby enlarge 
further the profits of the bank. Both circulation and de- 
posites must be paid by the bank on demand ; and the 
bank knows not when the payment of either may be de- 
manded ; but so long as any bank possesses daily a suf- 
ficiency of money to pay all the deposites and bank notes 



812 THE BANK. 

whose payment is daily demanded, the bank feels at liberty 
to lend on interest the excess. From the last December 
official returns sent to the Comptroller by the one hundred 
and eighty-lour banks of our State, their aggregate capital, 
including accumulated profits, and deducting the money 
invested in banking houses, a little exceeds forty-seven 
millions of dollars, which is all loaned on interest ; and in 
addition thereto, more than forty-five millions of their 
bank notes and deposites ; hence we discover the benefit 
which banks derive practically from tbeir bank notes and 
deposites. 

BAXK mVIDEXDS. 

The benefit derived from circulation and deposites, 
though large in the aggregate, as appears above, still 
barelv suffices to make bank capital desirable property. 
In Januar}^ of the year eighteen hundred and thirty-five, 
the then bank commissioners reported to the Legislature 
that ** the average dividends of all the banks, during the 
last three years, had been TyW P^r cent, the year, on the 
invested capital." The present public statements, required 
periodically from the banks, omit the amount of dividend 
which the banks pay ; but no reason exists for supposing 
that banking is more profitable than it was at the former 
period, or even quite so profitable, as more competition 
exists than existed then. Some banks that are favorably 
located pay annually ten per cent, in dividends, and a few 
pay more ; but a bank that pays eight per cent, the year 
will contrast favorably with the general average of banks ; 
while the ruin which occasionally overwhelms banks, ab- 
sorbing their whole capitals, evinces that the excess, if 
any, of bank dividends over seven per cent, the year, the 
legal rate of interest, is, even in prosperous banks, rarely 



THE BAXK. 313 

more than an equivalent for the hazards ircident to bank- 
ing; this, too, after we include in the annual dividend the 
exemption from taxation that pertains to the owners of 
bank capital ; — the tax being all paid by the bank. 

BENEFITS TO THE PUBLIC FROM THE USE OF BAXK NOTES. 

We shall, however, possess but an inadequate apprecia- 
tion of the nature of bank notes and deposites, if we esti- 
mate them by only their lucrativeness to banks. By the 
published bank reports of December last, the banks have 
loaned to the public, on private and public securities, nine- 
ty-two millions and a half of dollars, while the banks could 
have loaned only about forty-seven millions, had the banks 
not been assisted by the use of bank notes and deposites. 
The excess is more than forty-five millions of dollars. 
Twenty-three millions of this is composed of bank notes ; 
the residue is composed of deposites. But we will assume 
that the amount of bank notes loaned was only twenty 
millions of dollars, and that the remaining three millions of 
them was represented by specie, which the bank notes had 
taken out of circulation and placed in the vaults of the 
banks. 

Assuming, then, that the ability to create bank notes had 
caused the banks to increase their loans twenty millions of 
dollars, the public are benefited by the bank notes to 
the extent that the use of twenty millions of money ex- 
ceeds in productiveness tbe interest that the banks charged 
therefor. That the productiveness is more than the bank 
interest, is demonstrable from the competition that exists 
for loans. They are usually deemed favors by borrowers 
who can give for them the most undoubted security. 

Nor is the benefit of paper money confined to the bor- 
rower. It is shared variously by every person amongst 



314: THE BANK. 

whom the bank notes are circulated ; for whoever receives 
money receives it in exchange for his labor, or property 
that he values less than the money for which he exchanges 
it. Conceive now the rapidity with which money passes 
from one person to another (its use being too costly to per- 
mit any person to retain it long in inactivity), and you may 
approximate, remotely, to the number of persons who, dur- 
ing any one year, must be benefited by the twenty millions 
of dollars ; and if you can aggregate during any such year 
the benefits to the borrowers, and the innumerable partici- 
pants, as above, you will obtain a glimpse (greatly inade- 
quate it must be) of the merits of bank notes, irrespective 
of their use to banks as a means of banking profits. 

RELATIVE UTILITY TO THE PUBLIC OF THE SAFETY-FUND AND 
FREE BANKS. 

Nor must we omit in our calculations as above, that the 
twenty millions of loans produced by the use of banknotes, 
can exist by no other means. Any legal prohibition of 
bank notes would compel banks to reduce their loans to an 
amount equal to the extinguished bank notes. In this con- 
nection, we may contrast, with possibly some utility, the 
two systems of banking which are struggling for mastery 
in our State ; if the struggle be not already over by a tacit 
decision in favor of what are termed the free banks. The 
free banks can issue no bank notes without pledging with 
the Comptroller an equal amount of the public stocks of 
this State ; while the safety-fund banks can create bank 
notes at no greater expense than the cost of paper and 
printing. The free banks, therefore, take out of circula- 
tion, for the purchase of public stocks, as much money as 
they subsequently are able to return in bank notes.* That 

* Free banks can now issue bank notes on a pledge in part of real estate; and notes 
thus issued are not obnoxious to the above difficulty, as the real estate remains in the 
possession of the mortgagers, subject to its accustomed uses to society. 



THE BANK. 815 

this theoretical view is not essentially different from the 
actual result, will appear by the last December bank re- 
ports. Ninety free banks exist in the State, excluding the 
free banks of New- York, Brooklyn, Albany and Troy. 
These ninety banks own an aggregate capital of six mil- 
lions and a half of dollars. The capital was taken from 
the community in which the banks are situated, and the 
banks have returned it back in " loans and discounts ;" 
and only one million two hundred thousand dollars in addi- 
tion. The same district of country is occupied by fifty- 
one safety-fund banks, who own an aggregate capital of 
eight millions seven hundred thousand dollars. This sum 
has, likewise, been returned in " loans and discounts," with 
seven millions two hundred thousand dollars in addition. 
If, then, the above safety-fund banks should be converted 
into free banks, the loans to the public would, on the above 
principles, have to be diminished more than five millions of 
dollars; a diminution which exceeds one-fifth part of the 
whole existing "loans and discounts" of both the safety- 
fund and free banks in the district of country embraced in 
the above calculation : — namely, the whole of the State 
with the exception of New-York, Brooklyn, Albany, and 
Troy. The country, thus abridged in its means of active 
business, would receive no equivalent therefor in any 
shape, except an imagined greater security against insol- 
vent bank notes. 

LOSS TO THE PUBLIC FROxM INSOLVENT BANK NOTES. 

Legislation, on the subject of bank notes, has looked only 
to the evils of loss from insolvent banks. This evil will 
be terminated, when no bank notes can be created except 
on an equivalent pledge of public stocks ; but the Legisla- 
ture ought to inquire whether the remedy is not worse than 



316 THE BANK. 

the disease. Possibly, if the disease be estimated by prac- 
tical results rather than by declamation, (and declamation 
is much our habit in this particular,) each man may find, 
on reflection, that his loss from insolvent bank notes has 
been small, even without setting off against it the amount 
that he has been benefited by solvent bank notes. The 
laboring poor are the persons for whom, in this matter, 
commiseration is usually most eloquent ; but no class of 
society is benefited more directly by an exuberant curren- 
cy than manual laborers, and no class hazards so little by 
its dangers. From the danger which attends the creation 
of paper money, (the danger from owning bank stock,) the 
laboring poor are necessarily exempt. The only danger 
to which a poor laborer is exposed, is the casual possession 
of an insolvent bank note. This loss we magnify fallacious- 
ly, by saying that the loss of a dollar, when it constitutes 
the whole property of a" man, is as great a loss to him, as 
the loss of a thousand dollars is to a man a thousand times 
richer. The fallacy of the argument becomes manifest 
when we estimate the respective losses by the respective 
power of the parties to reinstate themselves as they stood 
before the loss. The laboring man accomplishes this by a 
day's labor, while the richer man may labor a year and not 
accomplish a like result. 

THE SAFETY FUND. 

But while we speak in favor of the safety-fund banks, 
we would not be understood as speaking favorably of the 
safety-fund principle, which punishes honest bankers for 
the frauds of the dishonest. It is, also, Y'cious in its ten- 
dency, for it promises indemnity against bank insolvency, 
and thereby prevents the scrutiny of the public into the 
conduct of bankers ; permitting extravagance, improvi- 



THE BANK. 617 

dence, and dishonesty to unmolestedly effect their ravages. 
The solvent banks, who are liable to the safety fund, have 
paid thereto nearly two millions of dollars for losses, and 
are still to pay, annually, during the continuance of their 
charters, the half of one per cent, on their respective capi- 
tals. Of this loss, about one million and a half of dollars 
accrued from banks in Buffalo, of whom in particular, and 
of all the broken banks in a great degree, may be affirmed, 
that if they had been unaided by the credit of the safety 
fund, they never would have been trusted sufficiently to 
much injure any person. And could the money, abstract- 
ed by their agency from the safety fund, be traced to the 
real beneficiaries, it would be found in the possession, not 
of innocent sufferers, but mostly of accessories to the frauds 
and mismanagements by which the losses to the safety 
fund were produced. 

RELATIVE LUCRATIVENESS TO BANK OWNERS, OF THE SAFETY- 
FUND AND FREE BANKS. 

Having thus shown how our existing two systems of 
banking act respectively on society, we will examine how 
they compare in profits to the stockholders. We will as- 
sume that tlie free banks can issue no bank notes except on 
an equivalent pledge of State six per cent, stocks ; and 
that the State slocks can be purchased at par. The legal 
and attainable interest of money is seven per cent.; hence, 
the free banks lose one percent, the year, on the amount 
of all their bank notes. Some persons may say that the 
difference is not merely the excess of legal interest over the 
six per cent, received on the State stock, but the excess of 
what tlie hundred dollars which is invested in State 
stocks would have earned in banking — say eight per cent ; 
and thus that the loss in procuring bank notes is one per 



318 THE BANE. 

cent, the year in the interest and an additional one per 
cent, in privation of productiveness : makino; the real loss 
two per cent, the year, on the amount of bank notes. We 
will, however, adopt the first mode of computation, and 
call the loss only one per cent., when the stocks can be 
purchased at par. 

But the stocks cannot be thus purchased. They are 
selling at a premium of ten per cent., which makes the loss 
of interest one dollar and sevent}^ cents the year on every 
hundred dollars of bank notes, without allowing for the ulti- 
mate loss of ten per cent, on the stocky when it comes to 
be paid off at par by the State. We shall not, therefore, 
be extravagant in assuming that the free banks lose one 
and three quarters per cent, the year on the amount of 
their bank notes ; while the safety-fund banks create bank 
notes without any loss, except the balf per cent, the year, 
paid on their aggregate capitals to the safety fund, and 
now a total loss. This reduces the comparative disadvan- 
tage of the free banks to one and a quarter per cent, the 
year on the amount of their capital invested in bank notes. 
By the published bank reports of last December, all the free 
banks of the State (excluding those of New-York city) 
possessed an aggregate capital of a little more than seven 
millions and a half of dollars, while the bank notes were 
equal to that sum, with the exception of about four hun- 
dred thousand dollars ; so that the free banks out of the 
city of New- York were (so far as our hypothesis is applica- 
ble to them) banking at a disadvantage, as compared \vith 
the safety-fund banks, of one and a quarter per cent, the 
year, on nearly their whole capitals. 

FREE BANKING IN NEW-YORK. 

The free banks of the city of New-York are differently 



THE BANK. 819 

circumstanced. Their aggregate capital in December last 
was $7,148,710, while their bank notes amounted to only 
$1,745,250. In the city, therefore, the free banks pay 
annually one and three-quarter per cent, for their bank 
notes— say, ..... $30,540 
And gain, by exemption from the safety fund, half 

per cent, the year on their capitals, say, . 35,743 



Leaving an annual balance in favor of free bank- 
ing in the city of New- York, . . $5,203 

Besides the further benefit of being able to charge seven 
per cent, the year interest on loansj of sixty days and 
under, while the safety-fund banks can charge -only six per 
cent. This source of benefit is enjoyed also by the coun- 
try free banks, and, to the extent ot its availability, will 
mitigate the assumed loss of free banking in the country. 
In large cities like New- York, the difTerence between six 
per cent, and seven, on short loans, must produce a gain 
to the free banks of at least a quarter of one per cent, on 
the whole of their bank capital, and, possibly, much more ; 
for such paper is abundant in cities. If, therefore, we 
credit the free banks of New-York city with the above 
advantage, in addition to the advantage already shown to 
exist in their favor, we shall see that in the city free bank- 
ing is more lucrative than safety-fund banking ; burdened 
as the latter is with a safety-fund tax of a half of one per 
cent. 

If, however, the free banks of the city employ a smaller 
amount of bank notes in loans than they would employ if 
they could create bank notes without expense, as the 
safety-fund banks create them, a consequent loss to the 
city free banks must be estimated before we can settle 
accurately the relative lucrativeness in the city of the two 



320 THE BANK. 

systems of banking. But banking in the city is so largelj 
transacted on deposites, that the amount of the above sup- 
posable loss is, probably, much too small to counteract the 
preponderance of benefit which belongs there to the free 
banks. 

RELATIVE EFFECTS ON CITY AND COUNTRY CAPITALISTS OF 
THE SAFETY FUND AND FREE BANK SYSTEMS. 

To the bank stockholders, therefore, the free bank sys- | 
tem is rather more lucrative in New- York city than the 
safety-fund system with its existing burdens, while in other 
parts of the State the free bank system is less lucrative, by \ 
about one per cent, the year on the invested capital, than 
the safety-fund system. City capitalists, therefore, possess, 
in the business of banking, an advantage over country cap- 
italists. 

RELATIVE EFFECTS ON CITY AND COUNTRY COMMERCE OF THE 
SAFETY-FUND AND FREE-BANK SYSTEMS. 

Let US now inquire what portion belongs to the country 
and what to the city, of the public loss which will result, 
as we have shown, when no bank notes can be created 
except on an equivalent pledge of public stocks. By the 
bank statement of last December, the bank loans, founded 
on bank notes, are about three dollars in the country to 
every one dollar in the city; so whatever injury may result 
from the extinguishment of safety-fund bank notes, the 
injury will fall on the country, in the proportion of three 
dollars on the country to every dollar of injury on the city. 
The customers of the city banks live near the banks, and 
consequently employ but few bank notes ; checks, founded 
on deposites, being substituted in the city for bank notes 
in nearly all business transactions. In the country, the 
bank borrowers employ the borrowed money at places re- 



* THE BANK. 321 

mote from the lending bank, and must use bank notes. 
The country, therefore, and the city are interested in very 
different degrees by all laws which abridge the free issue of 
bank notes ; but should the Legislature prohibit bank de- 
posites, except on a pledge by banks of State stocks, the 
law would embarrass the business of the city, beyond its 
embarrassment to the country, in just about the same pro- 
portion as such a law in relation to bank notes embarrasses 
the business of the country beyond its embarrassment to 
the city. 

DIFFERENT LEGAL PRIVILEGES ACCORDED TO DIFFERENT 
SAFETY-FUND BANKS. 

Originally, every safety-fund bank was permitted to 
issue bank notes to three times the amount of its capital ; 
but in cities, where large banks are needed, business is 
transacted principally by means of deposites ; hence a 
New-York two-million bank soon found that its ability to 
issue six millions in bank notes was a useless privilege. 
But in the country, where banks are small, in accordance 
with the sQiallness of inland dealings, business is transacted 
principally with bank notes ; hence a hundred-thousand- 
dollar country bank found that it could occasionally em- 
ploy more than its allowable issue of bank notes. From 
this development of practice, the Legislature abrogated the 
useless ratable equality that existed in the alio v; able issue 
of bank notes, and permitted a two-million bank to create 
only twelve hundred thousand dollars of bank notes, while 
a hundred-thousand-dollar bank was peraiitted to issue a 
hundred and fifty thousand dollars in bank notes. The 
bank note issues of intermediate magnitudes of capital were 
graduated by the above proportions. The advantage is 
still largely on the side of the two-million bank ; for its legal 

15 



822 • THE BANK. 

limit is much above its wants, while the limit on the 
small bank is often a practical abridgement of its business. 
The two existing two-million banks of New- York had to- 
getber last Deceuiber only four hundred and sixty thousand 
dollars of bank notes in circulation ; and as nothing but 
iheir own wishes prevented them from issuing more, we 
must infer that they desire no greater issue. 

THE CURRENCY. 

On the ninth of last December, the one hundred and eighty- 
four banks of our State owed individual de- 
positors $29,205,332 

Their bank notes in circulation amounted to 23,206,289 



Making the aggregate of indebtedness, pay- 
able on demand, . . . .$52,411,621 

Of which aggegate the banks bad loaned on 

public and private securities . . 45,209,372 

Being the whole, with the exception of $7,202,249 

This seems bold ; but if the money has been so loaned 
tbat it can be recalled by the banks respectively as fast as 
they are respectively called on to pay the deposites and 
bank notes, the apparent boldness will subside. The banks 
possess another reliance. They have loaned not only the 
above deposites and bank notes, . . 845,209,372 

but also the capitals of the said banks, say, 47,333,879 



Making a total of loans on public and private 

securities of . . . $92,543,251 

The banks are therefore safe if they can recall enough 
daily, out of the above enlarged aggregate, to meet the 
daily returning bank notes, and the daily withdrawn depos- 



THE BANK. 823 

ites. This theoretical ability of the banks is strengthened 
by experience, which shows that the aggregate amount of 
bank deposites and bank note circulation varies but com- 
paratively little from day to day, and even from month to 
month, and from year to year ; for, though bank notes are 
continually being returned to banks for payment, they are 
continually paid out again as money ; and though deposites 
are continually being drawn out by depositors, they are con- 
tinually returned as new deposites. 

THE CURRENCY OF THE STATE IS A SORT OF MEASURE OF THE 
BUSINESS OF THE STATE. 

The small variation in our State from month to month 
in the aggregate amount of bank circulation and de- 
posites, evinces that the commerce of the State employs 
the given amount of circulation and deposites. They con- 
stitute the currency of the State ; for usually the other 
items of currency (specie and foreign bank notes) are 
small in comparative amount. Commerce cannot ordina- 
rily expand without an expansion of the currency, nor can 
either contract without a contraction of the other. And 
we may all have experienced, that business is more usually 
contracted from inability to obtain currency, than currency 
is contracted from diminution of business. A proof of this 
is the expansion, apparently illimitable, that gradually oc- 
curs in business whenever banks become able to expand 
the currency. 

THE BUSINESS OF THE STATE IS A SORT OF GUARANTEE TO 
BANKS FOR THE PERMANENCE OF A GIVEN AMOUNT OF 
CURRENCY. 

The connection which thus exists between business and 
currency constitutes a practical guarantee to the banks 



324 THE BANK. 

that all their bank notes will not be suddenly returned for 
payment, nor all deposites be withdrawn. Except for this 
guarantee no banker would dare to issue bank notes beyond 
the amount of his specie in bank, or to lend any portion of 
the money that he holds in deposite. If we examine the 
magnitude of the currency of our State when money is 
said to be scarce, and compare it with the magnitude that 
exists when money is said to be abundant, the diflerence 
will be small, thereby showing that the guarantee above 
alluded to is potent. The currency will occasionally suffer 
a diminution that may distress hankers^ but the great bulk 
of it must be as permanent as the business operations of 
men. 

A SURPLUSAGE OF CURRENCY CAN NEVER EXIST LONG. 

Neither bank notes nor bank deposites can exist long in 
excess, for some persons are paying interest for them to 
the banks ; for example, the public, last December, owed 
the banks more than Ibrty millions of dollars beyond the 
aggregate of all the deposites and bank notes ; consequently 
an extinguishment of this indebtedness furnishes a use for 
all existing bank notes and deposites : a use equal to say 
seven per cent, the year on the whole sum ; hence the ex- 
tinguishment of the currency by the payment of bank debts 
becomes a sort of safety-valve, through which the currency 
vanishes during any diminution of existing business pursuits. 
" Dust thou art, and unto dust thou shalt return," is not 
more applicable to the human body, with reference to the 
earth, than to bank currency with reference to bank loans. 
The currency originates with bank loans; and by the re- 
payment of the loans the currency becomes extinguished. 
We accordingly find when business is technically dull — 
that is, when men cannot use currency at a sufficient profit 



THE BANK. 825 

to pay the bank seven per cent, interest thereon, the ag- 
gregate diminishes daily by voluntary payments made to 
the banks by their debtors. At such times the Bank of 
England reduces its rate of interest ; for though no ex- 
isting business may justify the payment of seven per cent, 
the year on loans, business may exist that will justify the 
payment of six per cent., or five or four. By thus periodi- 
cally graduating the rate of bank interest by the contem- 
poraneous profitableness of the employment of money, the 
bank of England keeps its aggregate amount of loans as 
high as it desires.* 

THE EXTINGUISHMENT OF BANK CIRCULATION AND DEPOSITES, 
AND THE EXTINGUISHMENT OF DEBTS DUE TO BANKS, PRE- 
SERVE A PRETTY UNIFORM EQUALITY. 

The daily payments to all the banks of the State, come 
naturally to be about equal in amount to the aggregate 
daily redemptions by the banks of their bank notes and 
bank deposites. In the production of this equality the 
banks sometimes act compulsorily on the public, sometimes 
the public act compulsorily on the banks. When bank 
debtors pay voluntarily their bank loans, they com])ulsorily 
extinguish bank notes or bank deposites to the extent of the 
loans paid ; but when banks exact a reduction of bank loans, 
the banks compel the extinguishment of bank notes and de- 

* Borrowers may often be found for money when the loan is to continue for several 
months ; while no borrowers may be willing to take money on loans for short periods. 
The Bank of England accordingly extends the duration of its loans, as well as reduces its 
rates of interest, when borrowers are not sulFiciently numerous. But loans for short 
periods are alone desirable to banks, for a bank knows not when its currency may return 
for redemption, and hence cannot safely loan for long periods. The duration of bank 
loans comes naturally to be graduated by the time that ordinarily intervenes between 
the issue of currency by banks, and its return for redemption and extinction. The period 
of return varies with different employments of currency, and indifferent localities, but 
the period is rarely so long as to enable banks to extend the duration of loans beyond a 
few months, especially with the facilities Avhich eiijrt now everywhere for the return of 
bank notes to the bank that issued them. 



326 THE BANK. 

posites to the extent of the reduction. Both calculations 
assume that the bank loans are paid with bank notes or 
deposites, for specie constitutes too small a portion of the 
currency of the State to vary much the general calculation. 

SPECIE PAYMENTS. 

The last December bank reports show that the banks of 
the State owe, in circulation and deposites, nearly fifty- 
two millions and a half of dollars, payable on demand, in 
specie ; while the specie in all the banks is not quite seven 
millions of dollars. To an inexperienced observer, nothing 
seems wanting to the destruction of banks thus circum- 
stanced, but some casual run on them for specie. Indeed, 
a sort of vulgar error exists in relation to the importance 
of specie to the currency of bank notes, and even to the 
ultimate value of both bank notes and bank deposites. Bad 
indeed, and fallacious indeed, would be both bank notes 
and deposites, if their currency or value depended on the 
amount of specie owned by the banks at any given mo- 
ment. Of the fifty-two millions in bank notes and depo- 
sites, due from the banks last December, the true basis of 
value was the ninety-two millions and a half in debts 
due to the banks, which, with the seven millions in specie, 
made together ninety-nine millions and a half of dollars, 
wherewith to pay the fifty-two millions of deposites and 
bank notes. For all purposes of solvency the banks, there- 
fore, possessed ninety-nine millions and a half of specie — 
seven millions of it in the vaults of the banks, and ninety- 
two millions and a half in the pockets of the people. 

SPECIE SUSPENSIONS. 

But as the fifty-two millions due from the banks in de- 
posites and bank notes are payable on demand, while the 



THE BANK. 327 

ninety-two millions due to the banks are payable in only 
daily portions, the whole not collectable under some 
months, the banks may be called on for payments faster 
than the bank debts will become payable, and a suspension 
of specie payments may ensue, notwithstanding the assist- 
ance which the banks will derive from the possession of 
seven millions in specie at the commencement of the 
struggle. Our State has experienced three such suspen- 
sions, but no abatement of avidity by the public was 
produced thereby, in the desire to procure bank notes and 
bank deposites. They continued as valuable as ever for 
the purpose ot currency, and were less valuable than spe- 
cie only when specie was wanted for some other purpose 
than for currency within our State. 

SUSPENSION OF SPECIE PAYMENTS BY A SINGLE SOLVENT 

BANK. 

The inherent value of bank notes and bank deposites, 
independently of their convertibility on demand into specie, 
is best seen, when a single solvent bank suspends specie 
payments. Within a circuit of country occupied by the 
debtors of the bank, its notes and deposites will continue 
to be current as long as the debts daily becoming due to 
the bank continue to be equal in amount to the bank notes 
and deposites that will be daily seeking redemption. Sup- 
pose, however, that the debt which you may owe the. bank 
will not become payable under four months, still notes and 
deposites to the amount of your debt will possess a value 
to you equal to specie, less the interest for the four 
months ; hence, if the bank possess good debts equal in 
amount to its notes and deposites, such notes and deposites 
can, intrinsically, depreciate in value only to the amount 
of such interest — nor will the deposites and notes depreci- 



328 THE BANK. 

ate intrinsically to that extent, if the bank shall be suffi- 
ciently solvent to eventually pay its notes and deposites 
with interest superadded, according to the requirement of 
law. 

LEGAL TENDER. 

The B ink of England suspended specie payments con- 
tinuously during twenty years, and its notes and deposites 
retained the value of specie except where gold and silver 
were needed for other purposes than domestic currency. 
Some persons attribute the result to an act of parliament, 
by which costs could not be recovered in a legal prosecu- 
tion against a debtor who tendered payment in notes of 
the Bank of England. No law, however, can confer a 
value on insolvent paper money, except as the law may 
act on pre-existing contracts. The law may, indeed, for- 
bid you from refusing to receive the money on new con- 
tracts, but you will enter into none. The experiment was 
tried during our Revolutionary War, and it was tried sub- 
sequently by France, but prices for all salable property 
increased continually, as the supposed actual value of the 
paper decreased. 

RECEIVABLES AND TREASURY NOTES. 

During our specie suspension of the year ISHj the value 
of paper money was well illustrated by the origination of 
a new species of bank note, which, instead of promising to 
pay, promised to receive the note in all bank payments. 
The notes were called receivables, and they circulated as 
readily as specie in the vicinity of the issuing bank, so long 
as the bank restricted the emission within the amount 
needed by the bank debtors of the vicinity. The same 
principle is apparent in the treasury notes emitted occa- 
sionally by the Federal Government, and bearing no inter- 



THE BANE. 829 

est. The notes are receivable for duties, and all other 
governmental payments, and this receivability confers a 
specie value as currency on such notes, to the amount of 
several milHons of dollars scattered over the Union. Oc- 
casionally the notes accumulate in New-York faster than 
they can be used in governmental payments, and then they 
sell at a discount which is graduated in degree by the time 
that will elapse before the notes will be needed in pay- 
ments to Government. The currency of such treasury 
notes, despite their inconvertibility into specie, is often attri- 
butable to the known solvency of the Government ; but no 
considerations are necessary to the currency of the notes 
but a consciousness that the notes will immediately, or 
shortly, supply a use for which specie will otherwise be 
needed. 

A NATIONAL CURRENCY. 

The Bank of England, possessing a capital of many mil- 
lions of pounds sterling, invested in short loans to bankers 
and merchants, and being the recipient of all the govern- 
mental moneys that accrue from taxes, duties, excise, &:c., 
could circulate as specie any notes that the bank would 
receive. But the notes which the bank issues being pay- 
able on demand, in specie, the bank is compelled to subor-* 
dinate the amount of its bank note currency, and, conse- 
quently, the amount of its loans, to the fluctuations tliat 
occur in the demand for specie, how disastrously soever 
the subordination may affect the internal commerce of the 
kingdom. In place of its present notes, were the bank to 
substitute a currency like the receivables of which we 
have been speaking, gold and silver could be exported or 
imported according to the requirements of commerce, 
without any consequent derangement of business. Such 

15* 



830 THE BANK. 

a currency would be as expansible, at all times, as the 
business requirements of the country ; and without losing, 
intrinsically, its ultimate specie value, since every debtor 
of the bank would be holden to pay his debt in specie, to 
the extent that he could not procure the notes of the bank. 
The responsibility of procuring specie rests now on the 
bank ; the responsibility in the other system would rest on 
the bank's debtors. We cannot, however, avoid seeing 
that the bank might issue so large an amount of notes that 
an excess might be occasionally produced beyond the 
quantity that could be kept at par value by the foregoing 
processes. The depreciation might be illimitable in its 
degree, should the bank augment illimitably the excess of 
currency. Possibly, therefore, the power to create such a 
currency cannot be safely committed to any institution 
without hazarding greater evils than result from the exist- 
ing system of paper money, notwithstanding its sudden 
contractions on a foreign demand for specie. 

EXPANSIONS OF THE BANK NOTE CURRENCY. 

Having thus considered the nature of paper money, we 
will consider the principles by which its volume is regu- 
lated, when a power exists, as in safety-fund banks, to 
expand at will the currency within a given limit.* When 
country products sell at unusually high prices, the purchase 
of them employs a greater amount of money than when 

* This exiiiiusibility to meet the w-ants of commerce, makes the safety-fund hanks more 
useful thau the free hanks. As relates to dcposites, both kinds of banks possess an equal 
expansibility. The expansibility of a bank note cun-ency renders such a currency better, 
as a commercial instrument, than a currency wholly of specie, whose unexpansibility 
would constitute a great i^ractical check on competition and on enterprise generally. A 
specie currency is not, however, wholly unexpansible. We experienced this in the late 
famine in Ireland. Specie was sent from England to purchase our breadstuffs ; but an ex- 
pansibility from such a source is slow; and it can occur only in emergencies of interna- 
tional commerce, not in emergencies of domestic commerce, except in countries where 
specio is hoarded by individuals. 



THE BANK. 331 

the articies sell at low prices. High prices proceed usually 
from some extraordinary demand for the appreciated arti- 
cles, and the extraordinary demand increases the number 
of the purchasers, and the frequency of sales and re-sales ; 
all which augment the amount of money that purchasers 
of produce borrow from the banks. Besides, as.the price 
augments of any article, the area enlarges over which pur- 
chasers extend their operations, creating thereby new 
applicants for bank currency. 

THE SPIRIT OF SPECULATIOIV IS CONTAGIOUS. 

Every marketable article is subject to an increased ac- 
tion like the above, and after speculation is aroused it 
becomes contagious, so that speculators multiply fast ; and 
though the original purchases may be limited to wheat, all 
other species of grain soon become added thereto, and other 
articles of a different nature. In the vear eio-hteen hun- 
dred and thirty-seven, every man and woman became 
infected with a desire for the unoccupied lands of the 
United States, and millions of dollars in bank notes were 
borrowed from hanks and sent to Michigan, Ohio, Illinois, 
and other places where the coveted lands were situated. 
City and village lots, a.ny where, soon were purchased 
with like avidity, and the purchases undergoing an inces- 
sant activity of sale and re-sale, vast amounts of new cur- 
rency were created for the occasion. 

EXPANSION OF BANK DEPOSITES. 

The operations which produce in the country an expan- 
sion of the bank note currency, produce in cities an ex- 
pansion of bank deposites. These became accordingly, in 
1837, as unusually expanded in amount as bank notes. 
Banks readily encourage expansions, because bank proiits 



332 THE BANK. 

are thereby augmented, nearly every dollar of the increased 
bank notes and deposites being represented by some loan 
made on interest by the banks. 

CONTRACTION OF THE CURRENCY. 

The currency of the State is liable to an ebb as well as 
a flow in the amount of the aggregate, and as respects 
each bank's particular share thereof. Our State possesses 
one hundred and eighty-four banks, and each bank, as a 
sort of independent sovereignty, guards vigilantly its own 
interests, by endeavoring to obtain for itself as many de- 
posites as it can, and as large a share as it can of the ag- 
gregate bank note circulation of the State ; hence, when 
bank A receives in payments or deposites notes or checks 
of bank B, they are speedily sent to bank B for redemption. 
Everybank is a heart from which are continually flowing its 
bank notes, borrowers and depositors acting as arteries to 
distribute the bank notes through all the business ramifica- 
tions of the State ; while every other bank is a vein that is 
incessantly absorbing the said bank notes, and returning 
them to the bank from which they originally emanated. 
Some of the notes of every bank are returned to it through 
the agency of brokers, who, like separate and peculiar ab- 
sorbents, soak up, by purchases at a small discount, bank 
notes which have been casually carried out of their proper 
sphere of action, and tliereby become a sort of merchandise 
more or less depreciated in value, as the notes have wan- 
dered from home, and lost their properties as currency. 

PERIODICAL CONTRACTIONS. 

To carry further the analogy between the circulatory 
systems of banks and of the human body, banks are, as 
well as men, subject to an occasional rush of blood to the 



THE BANK. • 838 

head. The disease is prevalent with banks in the spring 
and fall. Country merchants resort then to New- York 
for their mercantile supplies, and take thither country- 
bank notes, which ihey have intermediately accumulated 
from their customers and debtors, every merchant drawing 
also from his depositing bank all his deposites, and borrow- 
ing from the banks to the extent that loans are attainable. 
When he arrives at New-York, any part of his money that 
is current at the city banks, soon flows thither, while the 
part which is uncurrent flows to the brokers ; and brokers 
and banks, with the utmost speed of raih'oads and steam- 
boats, send the country money home for redemption. 

PRESSURE CONTRACTION. 

The contraction just referred to is almost peculiar to 
inland banks, but the Atlantic banks are subject to a con- 
traction that rarely aflects extensively the interior, and is 
consequent to a demand on the Atlantic banks for specie, 
whether the specie is to be exported to Europe, or paid 
into the sub-treasury, or to be used for any other purpose. 
In December last, the New-York city banks possessed less 
than six milHons of dollars in specie ; while they were 
liable to be called on for rather more than twenty- seven 
millions in payment of bank notes and deposites, besides 
some nine millions in payment of debts due banks and 
other corporations. To be thus liable was not peculiar to 
last December. The position then may be esteemed some- 
thing better than a fair average of the usual condition of 
the city banks. Nor is the position bad, the banks pos- 
sessing a claim on their debtors to the amount of forty 
millions and a half of dollars in discounted notes, be- 
sides some seven or eight millions of dollars in other secu- 
rities. 



S34 THE BANK. 

But the banks are liable primarily, and if specie is de- 
manded from them to the extent of even a half a million 
of dollars, the banks become sensitive, and severally en- 
deavor to strengthen themselves by refusing to lend, and 
by exacting payments from their debtors. Now, as all the 
current money of the city is composed of the bank notes 
of the city banks, and of deposites in the said banks, all the 
loans that bank A can call in, will be paid in some of the 
aforesaid currency ; consequently, so far as the payments 
strengthen bank A, they impoverish banks C, D and E. 
But C, D and E were too poor already, and were severally 
endeavoring to strengthen themselves the same as bank A 
was endeavoring to strengthen itself; hence, C, D and E 
will call on their debtors more stringently than before, and 
their efforts will impoverish A in the same way as the 
efforts of A impoverished C, D and E. 

PANIC. 

The struggle just described must, as it proceeds, increase 
in intensity with a sort of compound progression ; and as 
each bank in recalling its loans looks only to its own safety, 
each bank is practically impoverishing the others to the 
extent of its power. But the consequences of the struggle 
are not confined to the banks. The currency (bank notes 
and deposites) being thus suddenly diminished in amount 
by the payment of bank debts, enough is not left to trans- 
act the usual business of the community. Money is said 
to become scarce. Property on sale cannot be readily sold, 
and with the diminution in the number of competing pur- 
chasers, prices languish and fall. Many persons who have 
depended on borrowing to meet accruing engagements are 
unable to borrow, and are compelled to suspend payments. 
In this category'will be some merchants who have lived 



THE BANK. 335 

expensively, and been deemed rich, though actually long 
insolvent, and kept from bankruptcy by only an ability to 
pay old debts by contracting new ones. Still they have 
been deemed as safe as other debtors ; and men begin to 
query, whose insolvency may not follow next, especially as 
every failure involves other failures of endorsers and cred- 
itors. A new element, panic, is introduced into the pres- 
sure ; and persons who have money to lend keep it unem- 
ployed until the storm subsides ; and thus the last resource 
of embarrassment — the resource technically termed " the 
street," — where notes can ordinarily be sold at a usurious 
discount — is closed against the needy, except at rates of 
discount so enhanced by avarice and fear as to engulf 
nearly the whole principal of any proposed loan, and thus 
defeat the motive for the sacrifice. The very day-labor- 
ers, journeymen-mechanics, and market people will some- 
times become infected with the panic, and add to the gen- 
eral trouble by a petty run on the banks for specie, in 
liquidation of small deposites, or the payment of small bank 
notes. 

THE PRESSURE REACHES THE INTERIOR. 

While pressure and panic thus ravage the metropolis, 
the banks of the interior, who at first are mere spectators 
of the struggle, begin to partake of the metropolitan distress. 
While money is plenty in the city, a portion of its currency 
consists of the notes of country banks, which are employed 
in ordinary occupations to avoid the expense attendant on 
their transmission home for payment ; but when the press- 
ure enhances the value of money, country bank notes are 
sold, and transmitted home, in unusual quantities, for re- 
demption. Nor is this the only intimation to country 
banks of the commotion in the city. The merchants of 



836 THE BANK. 

the country who are indebted to the city are strongly im- 
portuned by the city creditors to make speedy or even an- 
ticipated payments ; and debts already due can receive no 
further postponements. "While country banks are weak- 
ened to the extent that these requirements are complied 
v^^ith, the resources of the country banks are often sadly 
diminished in those moments of unusual need, by the return 
unpaid of many New-York acceptances, on whose payment 
the country banks have relied for funds. The country 
banks can now no longer furnish loans, but begin to re- 
quire payment from their debtors ; and thus bring on in 
the country a mutual struggle of bank A against bank B, 
in the way we have represented the struggle in the city. 

THE PRESSURE AND PANIC TERMINATE. 

Eveiy pressure in New- York will not rage to the extent 
we have described, nor will every city pressure extend into 
the country ; but when a pressure is commenced, it rarely 
is arrested till business is greatly diminished, and, compar- 
atively, little currency is required to conduct it. Export- 
able produce in the meantime becomes so reduced in price 
that it may be exported more advantageously than specie 
in the liquidation of foreign balances. Importers have also 
abridged their foreign orders, in accordance with the 
diminished prospects of a profitable trade. Specie becomes 
no longer in demand ; and the banks cease from urging 
payment of bank debts, and gradually begin to resume the 
process of lending. Business men foresee now that money 
will soon become abundant. They wish to purchase while 
prices remain at the panic and pressure standard. All en- 
tertain the same views. Competition revives, prices ad- 
vance, the banks lend freely to indemnify themselves in 
profits for the late period of abstinence. A new expansion 



THE BANK. 387 

is begun, to end at some future day in another contraction, 
another pressure, and, perhaps, another panic. 

THE SALE OF EXCHANGE. 

Notes of New- York city banks are, in all parts of tlie 
State, equal in value to specie, by reason that persons in 
all parts are debtors to the city. Indeed, so much of the 
money of the State is required for uses in the city, that 
country banks can generally satisfy any demand lor specie 
by a payment of the demand in bank notes of that city, or 
in a check upon soriie New-York bank ; so that the burden 
of maintaining specie payments incur State rests wholly 
on the banks of New-York. Their currency is the stand- 
ard in our State of par value, and by it we graduate the 
currencies of all other places in the State and out. Even 
during the various suspensions which we have experienced 
of specie payments, the currency of the New- York city 
banks has continued to be the standard of par value ; and 
when the city currency has been less valuable than specie, 
the specie has been deemed above par, instead of the cur- 
rency being deemed below par. People are often willing to 
allow a country bank a premium of half of one per cent., 
and sometimes more, for a draft of the bank on New- York, 
especially as every country bank will receive in payment 
of the draft notes of remote banks, on which the holder 
could not obtain the specie without much travel and ex- 
pense. The draft can be transmitted by mail, and its 
transmission by any mode of conveyance is, from the legal 
nature of negotiable paper, less hazardous than the trans- 
mission of bank notes, to say nothing of the exemption pro- 
duced by the draft from the expense which attends the 
transportation of specie in large amounts. The selling of 
drafts on New York becomes therefore one of the regular 



338 THE BANK. 

sources of profit to country banks, as well as of convenience 
to men of business ; and every country bank keeps funds 
there, and keeps funds in Albany, Boston, or other places, 
for the purpose of selling drafts thereon at a premium when 
the business of its vicinity makes drafts on such places de- 
sirable. 

COLLECTIONS WITHIN THE STATE. 

The principle which makes a merchant at Buffalo pur- 
chase, at a premium of one percent., a draft on New- York, 
will make a merchant at New-York sell, at a discount of 
one per cent., a draft which he may own payable at Buf- 
falo. Banks, accordingly, ch'arge a discount varying in 
magnitude of rate according to distance, and other circum- 
stances, when they give money to any person on drafts 
payable at remote banks. The charge is intended to 
remunerate the bank for its expense and trouble in procur- 
ing the payment of such drafts. The discount is, however, 
usually given, not on drafts payable at sight, but on notes 
and drafts payable at some future period, the bank charg- 
ing interest for the unexpired time, and commission for col- 
lecting the money at a distant place. 

COLLECTIONS OUT OF THE STATE. 

The collections just described are usually but small 
sources of profits. Some banks refuse the business wholly. 
But the banks in New- York are said to transact such busi- 
ness largely, with paper payable in Philadelphia, Baltimore, 
Boston, and other large cities .of the Union, and of Europe 
— a description of paper which the commerce of New-York 
makes abundant in that city. In loaning money on such 
paper, banks allow nothing to the holder when the rate of 
exchange happens to be in favor of the place where the 
paper is payable ; but this rule is not applied to European 



THE BANKER. 839 

drafts, on which the difference of exchange is usually 
large. In paper on Philadelphia, and other large cities of 
our Union, the rate of exchange is generally in favor of 
New- York ; hence the banks of New- York, in lending 
money on such paper, rarely receive any benefit from the 
rate of exchange, except as they may charge a percentage 
for collection, in addition to the interest on the money 
loaned. The charge for difference of exchange between 
any two commercial cities will vary naturally at different 
periods ; .but the multitude of collecting agencies which 
exist keep down the charge at all times to the lowest limits 
of reasonable remuneration. Still, the business constitutes 
one of the phases of banking, and it completes the summary 
herein proposed of banking operations. 



PART II. 

% THE BANKER THE OBJECT OF BANKING. 

Correct sentiments beget correct conduct. A banker 
ought, therefore, to apprehend correctly the objects of 
banking. They consist in making pecuniary gains for the 
stockholders, by legal operations. The business is emi- 
nently beneficial to society ; but some bankers have deemed 
the good of society so much more worthy of regard than 
the private good of stockholders, that they have supposed 
all loans should be dispensed with direct reference to the 
beneficial effect of the loans on society, irrespective, in 
some degree, of the pecuniary interests of the dispensing 
bank. Such a banker will lend to builders, that houses or 
ships may be multiplied ; to manufacturers, that useful fab- 
rics may be increased, and to merchants, that goods may 



840 THE BANKER. 

be seasonably replenished. He deems himself, ex officio, the 
patron of all interests that concern his neighborhood, and 
regulates his loans to these interests by the urgency of 
their necessities rather than by the pecuniary profits of the 
operations to the bank, or the ability of the bank to sustain 
such demands. The late Bank of the United States is a 
remarkable illustration of these errors. Its manager 
seemed to believe that his duties comprehended the equali- 
zation of foreign and domestic exchanges, the regulation of 
the price of cotton, the upholding of State credit, and the 
control, in some particulars, of Congress and the President 
— all vicious perversions of the interests of his stockholders 
to an imagined paramount end. When we perform well 
the direct duties of our station, we need not curiously 
trouble ourselves to effect indirectly some remote duty. 
Results belong to Providence; and by the natural catena- 
tion of events (a system admirably adapted to our restrict- 
ed foresight), a man can usually in no way so efficiently 
promote the general welfare as by vigilantly guarding the 
particular'interests committed to his care. If, for instance, 
his bank is situated in a region dependent for its prosperity 
on the business of lumbering, the dealers in lumber will 
naturally constitute his most profitable customers; hence, 
in promoting his own interests out of their wants, he will, 
legitimately, benefit them as well as himself, and benefit 
them more permanently than by a vicious subordination of 
his interests to theirs. Men will not engage permanently 
in any business that is not pecuniarily beneficial to them 
personally ; hence a banker becomes recreant to even the 
manufacturing and other interests that he would protect, if 
he so manage his bank as to make its stockholders unwil- 
ling to continue the employment of their capital in bank- 
ing. This principle, also, is illustrated by the late United 



THE 'BANKER. c54l 

States Bank ; for the temporary injuries which its mis- 
management inflicted on society are, though stupendous, a 
smaller evil than the permanent barrier its mismanagement 
has produced against the creation of any similar institution. 

THE PECUNIARY PROSPERITY OF HIS BANK SHOULD CONSTITUTE 
THE PRIMARY OBJECT OF THE BANKER. 

From the foregoing remarks, the honor and pecuniary 
prosperity of the bank should constitute the paramount 
motive of every banking operation. A violation of that 
principle produced, in the year eighteen hundred and 
thirty-seven, a suspension of specie payments. The banks 
suspended, that the debtors of the banks might not suspend ; 
or worse, the banks suspended, that the debtors might be 
spared the pecuniary loss that would have resulted from 
paying their bank debts. A conduct so suicidal was prob- 
ably fostered by the pernicious union in one person of 
bank director and bank debtor— a union from which our 
banks are never wholly exempt ; nor are they always ex- 
empt from the same union, still more pernicious, in bank 
presidents and cashiers. With this inherent delect in the 
organization of our banks, we can the more readily under- 
stand why the banks assumed dishonor to shield their 
debtors, and why the dishonor was continued for more 
than a year in our State, and longer in others ; and would 
have continued longer in ours but from a refusal of its 
further tolerance by the Legislature. The said defect 
produced all three of the specie suspensions which the 
banks of our State have suffered. As a prelude to each 
suspension, the Atlantic cities held enthusiastic public 
meetings, in which suspension was recommended to the 
bardvs ; and the recommendation enforced by the assurance 
that the meetings would sustain the banks in assuming a 



842 THE BANKER. 

suspended position. What a farce ! — what a " thimble- 
rig !" Such meetings were composed of bank debtors, and 
meant, substantially : suspend payments, that you may 
leave in our possession the money that we owe you; — as- 
sume dishonor, that we may remain honorable. 

SPECIE SUSPENSIONS ARE NEVER NECESSARY TO BANKS. 

Al Ithe suspensions of specie payments might have been 
prevented had the bankers performed their duty to their 
respective banks., by vigor in the enforcement of payments. 
Witness the successfully-sustained refusal of the Union 
Bank of New- York to unite in the specie suspension of the 
year 1813. All the banks, also, of New England preserved 
specie payments. We admit, that had all the banks of the 
Union refused to suspend payments in 1813, 1819, and 
1837, business would have severely suffered; but this is a 
consideration for the Legislature, and not for the banks. 
They are creations of the law, and should obey their crea- 
tor. In England, during its struggle with Napoleon, the 
Government prohibited specie payments by the Bank of 
England, when the suspension was deemed publicly useful. 
The suspension continued for twenty years ; but the bank 
incurred threby no disgrace, for it obeyed the law. 

THE INTERESTS OF DEBTORS AND DEALERS SHOULD BE SUBOR- 
DINATED TO THE INTEREST OF THE BANK. 

The subordination of the honor and interests of a bank 
to the avarice or necessities of its managers, or dealers of 
any description, is productive, not of suspensions only, but 
of every disaster which usually befalls banks ; and unless 
such a subordination can be prevented by the officer who 
acts specially as banker, no man who respects himself 
should continue in the position, when he discovers that 



THE BANKER. 848 

such a subordination is in progress. The owner of a 
steam-engine regulates its business by the capacity of his 
engine; but should he regulate it by the necessities of his 
customers, he would probably burst his boiler. A ship- 
owner regulates his freight by the tonnage of his ship; a 
contrary course would sink it. So every bank possesses a 
definite capacity for expansion by which bank dealers can 
regulate their business ; but when a bank regulates its ex- 
pansion by the wants of its dealers or the persuasion of 
friendship, it will probably explode, or be otherwise un- 
profitable to its stockholders. 

SECURITY. 

Banks charge for the use of money no more than the 
use is worth. Nothing is added for risk ; and thereby 
money-lending differs from all other business that involves 
hazard. A great disproportion exists also between the 
amount hazarded by any loan and the amount gained 
therefrom. The loan of a thousand dollars for sixty days 
involves the possible loss of a thousand dollars, without the 
possibility of a greater gain than some ten dollars. Banks, 
therefore, never lend money regularly without receiving 
undoubted security for the debt ; and a good banker will 
err on the side of excessive security, rather than accept se- 
curity whose sufficiency may be questioned. 

MORAL SECURITY. 

Independently of the wealth of an endorser, the banks 
derive from him a security founded on the natural desire 
of every borrower to protect his friends, should insolvency 
occur to the borrower during the pendency of the bank 
loan. An endorser will, also, usually foresee earlier than 
the bank when mischances threaten the borrower, and 



344 THE BANKER. 

when appeals for protection should be made. To derive 
these benefits from endorsers they should be disconnected 
in business from the borrower, so as not to be involved in 
his calamities ; hence such disconnection is always one of 
the circumstances from which a banker judges of the suf- 
ficiency of any proffered endorser. Relationship, of either 
consanguinity or affinity, between a debtor and his sureties, 
sharpens, usually^ the desire of the debtor to protect his en- 
dorser ; while again, such relationship facilitates the con- 
cealment of a common pecuniary interest in enterprises, 
and facilitates collusions against the bank in times of disas- 
ters, that may more than counterbalance the benefi.ts 
expected by the bank from the relationship. 

SECURITY FOUNDED ON THE MORALITY OF A DEBTOR. 

The more lax the morality is of a borrower the less will 
he probably feel the obligation to protect his endorsers ; 
and the more lax the morality is of an endorser, the more 
will he struggle against a surrender of his property to pay 
an unprotected endorsement. As a general result, how- 
ever, debts are rarely collectable from the property of an 
endorser, unless his property greatly over-balances the 
amount of his endorsement. Instances are continually oc- 
curring where an endorser who has become liable for a bad 
debt, which his property could pay, and leave him a sur- 
plus, will ruin himself in successfully preventing the appli- 
cation of his property to the debt in question. Hence, 
when a debt is contracted wholly on the property of the 
endorser, the debt will not be safe unless it is small in com- 
parison with the wealth of the endorser. 

SECURITY FOUNDED ON THE HABITS OF A DEBTOR. 

Men who are prone to extravagance in their domestic 
or personal expenditures rarely possess the amount of prop- 






THE BANKER. 345 

erty they are reputed to possess. Men expend to be 
thought rich more frequently than they expend by reason of 
being rich. The rich are usually more inclined to parsi- 
mony than expenditure. Any way, persons who practice 
parsimony are in the way of becoming rich, whatever may 
be their present poverty ; while persons who are profuse in 
expenditures are in the way of becoming poor, though they 
may possess a present opulence. 



A man who transacts a regular business, in a regular 
way, is not liable to sudden fluctuations in his pecuniary 
solvency ; but when a man's business is novel, and its re- 
sults are untried, or when such business is frequently disas- 
trous, the banker who grants him loans assumes some of 
the hazards and uncertainties of the business. 

SECURITY FOUNDED ON THE APPLICATION OF THE LOAN. 

When money is to be invested in the purchase of mer- 
chandise, cattle, flour, or other property, in the regular 
course of the borrower's business, the investment yields to • 
the borrower a means of repayment : nothing is hazarded 
but ordinary integrity, and ordinary exemptions from disas- 
ters ; but when the borrowed money is to pay some preex- 
isting debt, none of the foregoing securities apply, and, pos- 
sibly, you are merely taking a thorn out of another person's 
side to place it in your own. 

SECURITY FOUNDED ON THE CHARACTER OF THE PAPER THAT 
IS TO BE DISCOUNTED. 

Notes which a man receives on the sale of property in 
his ordinary business are termed business notes. The 
owner having received them as money, had satisfied him- 
self of their safety ; hence, when they are offered to a 

16 



346 TUE BANKEK. 

banker by a prudent man of business they possess an in- 
herent evidence of value. They were given also for prop- 
erty that willj in the ordinary course of business, furnish 
the means by which the notes may be paid ; and thus they 
possess an additional ingredient of safety. Kindred to 
such notes are drafts which a man draws on a consignee 
to whom property has been forwarded for sale. If the 
consignee be a prudent man (the consignor must deem him 
prudent or he would not trust to him the property), he 
will not accept, unless the property forwarded is equivalent 
in value to the amount of the acceptance. The property, 
therefore, will pay the acceptance ; and while the prop- 
erty remains unsold it constitutes an equitable pledge for 
ultimate payment. A country banker, however, will usu- 
ally be benefited in a long couise of business, by never 
loaning on city names without a reliable country endorser 
or maker, or both ; for nothing is usually more unreliable 
than the reputed solvency of the merchants of large cities. 

ACCEPTANCES IN ADVANCE OF CONSIGNMENTS. 

A factor will sometimes accept in confidence that the 
drawer will supply him with funds in time to pay the ac- 
ceptance. This will not constitute a worse security than 
an ordinary accommodation endorsement ; but the trans- 
action lacks the reliability and security that are consequent 
to the acceptor's possession of consignments in advance of 
his acceptance ; and so far as the nature of the acceptance 
is concealed, the ostensible character of the paper will give 
it a fictitious security. 

ASSIMILATED NOTES AND ACCEPTANCES. 

Notes and acceptances are often assimilated to the fore- 
going character to facilitate the procurement of loans. 
Two merchants will exchange notes, and offer each others 



THE BANKEK. 847 

notes at different banks, as business paper. Such notes are 
peculiarily hazardous, by reason that the insolvency of 
either of the parties will usually produce the insolvency of 
the other. Acceptances are exchanged in the same way, 
and possess the same element of danger. 

KITING. 

Sometimes a country merchant will draw on a merchant 
of New- York, and obtain thereon a discount at some 
country bank. The draft will have some months to run 
before it will become payable ; but when it is payable, the 
New- York merchant will obtain the means of payment by 
drawing on the country merchant, payable some months 
thereafter, and getting a discount thereon in New- York. 
Such transactions are termed " kiting." They are prac- 
tised on notes as well as on drafts, and by persons residing 
in the same place as well as at distant places. When prac- 
tised by persons who live at a distance from each other, the 
operation is usually very expensive, by incidental charges 
of exchange and collection. Bankers should suspect the 
solvency ot parties who resort to expedients so expensive 
and commercially disreputable. The real character of the 
transactions is rarely avowed by the parties implicated in 
the practices; but a vigilant banker will soon suspect the 
operations, and not toucli them, unless the security can be 
made very ample. 

DUMMIES. 

A country produce dealer or manufacturer wall some- 
times place in New- York an agent on whom to draw ; or 
he may connect his operations with some person there of 
no capital, whom he will use as an acceptor. Such accep- 
tances are no better than the note of the country dealer. 



348 THE BANKER. 

Thej constitute, moreover, a hazardous class of paper, as 
you may rely somewhat on an assumed capital in the ac- 
ceptors. Such methods are rarely practised, except by 
persons who want to extend their operations beyond the 
limit to which a real consignee would restrict them. No 
prudential limit exists with the dummy acceptor; hence 
the drawer is able to carry his operations to an extent un- 
limited, except by his own will, or his ability to find lend- 
ers ; and thus predisposed, and supplied with the requi- 
site machinery, men usually extend their speculations till 
they are overwhelmed in ruin. 

VOID NOTES AND DRAFTS. 

Notes and drafts, to be sold at a usurious discount, are 
often made by parties ostensibly solvent, but who are 
struggling to purchase a transient respite from bankruptcy, 
or to amend their fortunes by desperate enterprises. Banks 
are, therefore, usually reluctant to discount paper offered 
by brokers or other persons who are known to practise 
•usury ; and such paper is, by existing laws, void as against 
makers and endorsers, in the hands of even an unconscious 
holder. In New- York the defence of usury is so discred- 
itable that few men avail themselves of it. In the country, 
people feel less fastidious in this respect ; and any debt 
which can certainly be avoided by a plea of usury would 
be very apt to be uncollectable. 

OF GAINS. 

But the avoidance of loss is only a negation of evil. To 
make gains is the proper business of a banker ; and as the 
principal source of legitimate gain is lending money, the 
bank must lend to the extent of its ability — erring on the 
side of repletion rather than of inanition ; for a banker 



THE BANKER. 84:9 

knows not how far his bank can bear extension till he 
tries; hence, if timidity, indolence, or apathy, limits his 
loans in advance of necessity, he may injure the community 
by unnecessarily withholding pecuniary assistance, and 
injure the stockholders by unnecessarily abridging the 
profits. A banker must not, however, extend his loans re- 
gardless of the future, but, like a skillful mariner, he should 
see an approaching storm while it is an incipient breeze, 
and meanwhile carry all the sail that will not jeopard the 
safety of his charge ; governing his discounts at all times 
by the condition of his funds, and his own prospective re- 
sources, more than by any reputed scarcity or abundance 
of money in other places and in other banks. 

WHEN TO BE MODERATE. 

If a banker can make reasonably good profits on his cap- 
ital without much expansion, he may keep more restricted 
in his loans than a banker should who is less favorably cir- 
cumstanced. Every banker must, however, remember that 
to be strong in funds and rich in profits, are natural incom- 
patibilities; hence the more money a banker wishes to 
make, the poorer in funds he must consent to become. In 
banking operations, as in most other, wisdom lies in a 
medium between extremes ; and if a banker can keep 
funds enough for practical safety, he had better forego ex- 
cess of funds, and receive an equivalent in gains. A re- 
pletion of loans, if they are undoubtedly solvent, prompt, 
and short, will soon of themselves work a relief to the 
bank; but a paucity of loans cannot, by any process of its 
own, cure the scant profits of the stockholders. Banks are 
rarely injured, therefore, by an excess of discounts. When 
banks fail, their disaster proceeds from the quality of their 
loans, not from the quantity. 



850 THE BANKER. 

THE KIND OF PAPER THAT A BANKER SHOULD PREFER. 

No banker should keep his funds inactive when no bet- 
ter excuse exists therefor, than that the business he can 
obtain is not so lucrative as the business of some other 
place, or as his own business was at some other period. 
The legal rate of interest is so high that the voluntary for- 
bearance of its reception, for even a short period, is ordi- 
narily a greater evil than the reception of any common 
description of solvent loans. Any way, a banker who 
keeps his funds inactive, to await the offer of loans more 
lucrative than simply the interest of money, should be well 
assured that the future loans will be sufficiently lucrative 
to compensate for the forbearance. But no disadvantages 
of position must be deemed a sufficient apology for the 
assumption of hazardous loans. When no safe business 
offisrs, no business should be transacted by a banker who 
entertains a proper respect for himself, or a proper feeling 
for his stockholders. Gains may be impossible, but losses 
are measurably avoidable. If any location presents the 
alternative of no business, or great hazards, a banker is 
accountable for the choice which he may make between 
the two alternatrves, and he is accountable no further. 

SELECTION OF LOANS FOUNDED ON INCIDENTAL CIRCULATION 
AND DEPOSITES. 

But, ordinarily, every banker is presented with more 
business than he can assume, and is enabled to select the 
more profitable and reject the less profitable. Money is 
sometimes borrowed to pay debts to a neighboring bank, 
or to a person who keeps his money deposited in a neigh- 
boring bank. Such loans yield no profit to the lender 
except the interest on the loan, hence they are not so pro- 
fitable as loans to borrowers who will take bank notes of 



THE BANKER. 851 

the lending bank, and circulate them over the country in 
the purchase of agricultural products. While the notes 
remain in circulation, the bank is receiving interest on 
them from the borrower — interest not for the loan of 
money, but for the loan by the bank of its promises to pay 
money when demanded. So on a loan made by a bank to 
one of its depositing customers, the bank receives interest 
only on its promise to pay the borrowed money, when the 
borrower shall from time to time draw for the same. And 
when a deposite is thus drawn from a bank, the draft is 
not necessarily paid in money, but in bank notes which 
may obtain a circulation. This advantage is a usual 
attendant of the deposites of some customers, and makes 
their accounts doubly beneficial to a bank. Whether a 
depositor asks for more loans than his deposite account 
entitles him to receive, is a question whose solution depends 
on whether the bank can lend all its money to better de- 
positing customers, or more profitably use it in loans for 
circulation. A banker should, however, estimate liberally 
the merits which pertain to a steady customer, not decid- % 
irig on any proposed loan by the amount of the proposer's 
deposite at the time of the proposal, but by his antecedent 
deposites, which were doubtless made in reliance on the 
bank for a fair reciprocity of benefits. Competition for 
profitable customers exists among banks as eagerly as 
competition among borrowers for bank loans ; hence, liber- 
ality to customers by a banker is as much a dictate of in- 
terest as of justice. 

SELECTION OF LOANS FOUNDED ON THE PLACE OF THEIR 
RE-PAYMENT. 

Notes and drafts discounted by country banks, and pay- 
able in New- York, Albany, Troy, and some other Eastern 
places, are payable in a currency whose value is enhanced 



852 THE BANKER. 

some half of one per cent, by the rate of exchange, which 
exists in favor of the East and against the West. As 
country banks never allow any premium in the reception 
of such paper, the benefit of the exchange is a strong in- 
ducement to a country banker for preferring loans thus 
payable, to loans payable at his own counter. Borrowers 
will often take advantage of this predilection, and make 
notes payable at New-York, as a means of obtaining a loan 
of a country banker. Notes thus made are rarely paid at 
maturity; hence, so far as a banker relies on their pay- 
ment, and founds his business calculations thereon, they 
are hurtful. To the extent that he colludes with the 
maker and supplies him with funds, by which any such 
note can be paid at New- York, at a loss to the maker of 
the difference in the rate of exchange, the transaction is 
unlawful ; and banking is not exempt from the ordinary 
fatality which ever, in a long course of business, makes 
honesty the best policy. To gain unlawfully must also be 
a poor recommendation to a banker, with any thoughtful 
stockholder; for if a man will collude to make dishonest 
gains for his stockholders, what security can the stock- 
holders possess that he will not collude against them, to 
make dishonest gains for himself? A country banker may 
properly discount a note payable in New- York, when the 
maker's business will make New- York the most conve- 
nient place of payment, though the borrower's residence 
may be in the country ; such is often the case with dro- 
vers, lumbermen, and some manufacturers Transactions 
of this circuitous nature must, however, be spontaneous 
on the part of the borrower ; for a note is usurious if, in 
addition to the receipt of legal interest, the banker super- 
adds, as a condition of the loan, that it must be paid at a 
distant city, and consequently in a currency more valuable 
than that the lender received. But when such loans are 



THE BANKER. 863 

legal, and possess the best commercial character for punc- 
tuality and security, they are not always so advantageous 
to a country bank as notes payable at the country bank, 
and connected with the circulation of bank notes or with 
deposites. The force of this remark can perhaps be better 
seen in what follows : 

SELECTION OF LOANS FOUNDED ON THE SALE OF EXCHANGE. 

Banks can usually make loans to borrowers who will use 
the loan in purchasing from the bank a draft on New- York 
or other Eastern city, whereby the bank will obtain a pre- 
mium on the sale of the draft, in addition to the interest on 
a loan. The operation becomes peculiarly advantage- 
ous to the bank when the loan is itself payable in New- 
York, for while the borrower pays in such a transaction, 
the half of one per cent, to the bank for a bank draft on 
New- York, he subsequently repays in New- York the bor- 
rowed money without receiving any return premium from 
the bank. But how lucrative soever such a transaction 
seems, banks can rarely transact profitably much of such 
business. Should the entire capital of a safety-fund bank 
of three hundred thousand dollars be employed in discount- 
ing drafts on New-York payable at three months from the 
time of discount, and should the bank pay therefor sight 
drafts on New-York, charging for them a premium of a 
half of one per cent, the bank could not pay its stockhold- 
ers above six per cent, the year in bank dividends. To 
pay that much the bank would have to earn nine per cent, 
the year on its capital, as follows : 

Dividend of six per cent, the year on $300,000 is $18,000 00 

Half per cent, to be paid to the safety-fund 1,500 00 

Salaries, taxes, stationery, and other contingencies during 

the year, at the lowest calculation for such a capital, 7,500 00 

Making a total which is equal to 9 per cent, on $300,000, $27,000 00 

16* 



854 THE BANKER. 

Being just what such a bank would earn during a year, if 
it transacted no other business than the discount of drafts 
as above supposed. The calculation shows that the sale of 
exchange must be deferred to business which brings with 
it circulation or deposits. Brokers can deal in exchange, 
as well as banks, and banks should make loans predicated 
on the sale of exchange, for only so much as can be thus 
sold without impairing the ability of the bank to lend mo- 
ney for circulation, &c. The abihty of a bank to lend for 
circulation is impaired by the sale of exchange, because 
such sales take the funds with which country banks re- 
deem their bank notes; and no banker is willing to issue 
bank notes for circulation except in proportion to the 
amount which he possesses of redeeming funds. 

SELECTION OF LOANS FOUNDED ON A COMMISSION FOR 
THEIR COLLECTION. 

Banks often make loans that are payable at places where 
the payment is worth to the lending bank less than a pay- 
ment at its own counter. But banks turn to a profit this 
disadvantage, by charging, in addition to the interest, a 
commission for collecting payment of the loans. Notes 
payable as above are given extensively by country mer- 
chants to the persons of whom they purchase goods, and 
the commission charged by banks for collecting the pay- 
ment of such notes, varies according to distance, and the 
facilities which exist for making the collections ; but 
whether a bank can make money by such collections, de- 
pends on the arrangements it is able to make : for instance, 
a bank at Buffalo may receive one per cent, for collecting 
a note payable at (Jtica, while a bank at Utica may receive 
one per cent, for collecting a note payable at Buffalo; 
hence, if the two banks can exchange this paper with each 



THE BANKER. 865 

Other, each bank will be paid at its own counter, and gain 
the one per cent., without any inconvenience except the 
trouble of corresponding with each other, and the expense 
of postage. Every good banker endeavors to acquire cor- 
respondents of the character indicated, for, in banking, as 
in other business, competition keeps down profits ; so that 
much gain is impracticable except as a result of good man- 
agement. 

SELECTION OF LOANS FOUNDED ON THE TIME THEY 
ARE TO ENDURE. 

As every loan is usually attended with some advantage 
to the bank, in the ways we have explained, beyond the in- 
terest paid by the borrower, the sooner the loan is to be re- 
paid to the bank, the more frequently will the bank be able 
to reloan the money, and obtain a repetition of the inci- 
dental advantages. Loans, however, that are not longer 
to run than sixty days must be discounted at the rate of six 
per cent, the year, interest, instead of seven, by all safety- 
fund banks ; hence, when a safety-fund banker makes 
such loans, the incidental benefits must be sufficient to 
countervail this loss of interest, or longer paper will be more 
profitable. 

TIME ESTIMATED WITH REFERENCE TO THE PROSPECTIVE 
WANTS OF A BANK. 

As country banks are subject every spring and fall to a 
revulsion of their bank notes, every judicious banker will 
endeavor to so select the loans which he makes during a 
year, that large amounts of them will become payable at 
the periods when funds will be most needed. The pam- 
per which is selected for the future contingency, will be 
useful in proportion to its reliability ; and paper payable 
in New- York or other Eastern cities, will be more useful 



856 THE BANKER, 

than any other. No rule of banking is more practically 
valuable than the Ibregoing. 

TIME WITH REFERENCE TO PANICS AND PRESSURES. 

As banking is liable to panics and pressures which may 
arise without being preceded by any long premonitory 
symptoms, a banker must invest his funds in short loans 
which measurably accomplish the feat that is proverbially 
impossible, " to have a cake and eat it at the same time :" 
— that is, by means of short loans, the bank keeps its funds 
always available within a short period, and yet keeps them 
always loaned out on interest. The banks of large cities 
are able to make loans payable on demand, or on a few 
days notice ; while country banks possess no such oppor- 
tunities, but are able usually to deposit their spare funds in 
some banks of Albany or New- York, subject to a repay- 
ment on demand, or on short notice ; and in the mean time 
to receive on the deposite an interest of some four or five 
per cent. Such arrangements are peculiarly beneficial to 
country banks, as every country bank is compelled, by 
existing laws, to keep in New- York or Albany an agency 
for the redemption of its bank notes ; and hence must keep 
funds in one of those cities. Experience, however, has 
painfully demonstrated, in a recent bank failure, that the 
convenience of an interest paying depository is not exempt 
from danger. The Legislature, in compelling country 
banks to incur this danger, has looked solely to the conve- 
nience of the public, and possibly estimated too lightly or 
disregarded the hazard to the banks. 

A BANKER SHOULD ACQUAINT HIMSELF WITH THE PECUNIARY 
CIRCUMSTANCES OF HIS DEALERS. 

What is every person's business is proverbially nobody's ; 
hence the safety of banks depends less on boards of direct- 



THE BANKER. 857 

ors, than on some single person to whom the bank is spe- 
cially confided, and to whom we have alluded under the 
name of the hanker. He is to be always present, and 
always responsible, in his feelings and in public estimation, 
for the prosperity of the bank ; and for these services he 
ought to be well compensated pecuniarily, so as to stimu- 
late his faculties to their best efforts. We mistake human 
nature when we expect great efforts from any man, and 
supply no direct motive therefor. The banker we have 
described will acquaint himself with the pecuniary circum- 
stances of the dealers of his bank, and of their endorsers, 
and of all persons who, though not present debtors or en- 
dorsers, may probably become such. Persons enough 
will hasten to inform a banker when any of his debtors are 
become declared insolvents ; but such shutting of the stable 
door after the horse is stolen, is not the information that is 
useful to a banker. The information which is useful must 
be made while the person in question retains a reputation 
for solvency; and the information will be valuable in pro- 
portion as " it scents any coming mischief in the far-off 
gale." To acquire information, some country bankers ob- 
tain extracts from the assessment rolls of the towns within 
the circuit of their dealings, such extracts including only 
the men of reliable property. Other bankers keep a book 
composed by themselves, of names, accumulated from day 
to day, of persons whose pecuniary position may interest 
their bank. Such a book may assume the form of an ex- 
tensive alphabet, and the persons therein may be registered 
under the name of the town in which they reside. By this 
arrangement, when a banker is brought in contact with a 
person who resides, say, in Oswego, he can, by looking in 
his book, under the head of Oswego, see the names of his 
debtors, and obtain such information in relation to them 



853 THE BANKER.- 

as the person from Oswego can supply ; and which infor- 
mation he can I'ecord against each name respectively. 
The information thus acquired may be revised by other 
informants, as opportunities may offer, and the banker 
must give to the whole such an interpretation as his judg- 
ment shall dictate. The record will be improved by noting 
the name of the person from whom the information is re- 
ceived, and the date of its reception, for the information 
will be reliable in proportion somewhat to its recentness, 
and to the character of the informant. In large cities 
where discounts are rarely made except to persons of the 
city, who are personally known to some of the directors, 
such a record may be useless ; but in country banking the 
borrowers and their endorsers are generally residents of 
remote places, and unknown, personally, in the locality of 
the bank. A country banker who should insist on a per- 
sonal acquaintance with his dealers and their endorsers, 
would find his business restricted to a circle too small for 
the employment of his capital. In vain will such a banker 
insist that he ought not to make loans to persons of whom 
he possesses no knowledge ; the answer will be that he 
should acquire the knowledge. He is bound to know a 
sufficient number of persons to enable his bank to employ 
its capital advantageously. Every note, therefore, that he 
rejects for want of knowledge, is ostensibly a slight re- 
proach on him, in cases where he has not a sufficiency of 
known borrowers, while every note that he rejects or ac- 
cepts by means of his knowledge of the parties, is a tribute 
to his industry and vigilance. 

A BANKER SHOULD, AS FAR AS IS PRACTICABLE, KNOW THE 
SIGNATURES OF HIS DKALERS. 

The preceding remarks will show why country banks 
are specially liable to loss from forgeries. Moreover, 



THE BANKER. 359 

many of the makers and endorsers who deal with country 
banks write poorly, and their signatures bear but little in- 
ternal evidence of genuineness, even when you are par- 
tially acquainted with the parties ; for the same person will 
write differently at different times, and especially with 
different pens and different qualities of ink; and he varies 
these continually. Still the greater the danger, the greater 
is the caution which the banker must exercise. He must 
bring to the difficulty all the scrutiny of which the case 
is susceptible, or he will not stand excused for conse- 
quent losses. A comparison of any proffered signature 
with one that is genuine, though encumbered with difficul- 
ties as above explained, is a guide that should not be ne- 
glected ; and it is often the best that can be resorted to. 
Some bankers, therefore, keep a book, in which every per- 
son who frequents the bank inserts his name. The signa- 
tures should be placed alphabetically, to facilitate a future 
reference to them. The endorsers may never visit the 
bank, but when a note is paid, the names of the endorsers 
may, with the consent of the maker, be cut from the note, 
and pasted into the book in their proper order. In no very 
long time, a mass of autographs may be thus collected. 

A BANKER SHOULD KNOW THE RESIDEIVCE OF ENDORSERS. 

The law in relation to endorsers renders them liable on 
only due notice of the non-payment of the endorsed note. 
This avenue of loss is felt but seldom in large cities, but in 
the country it produces constant danger, A country 
banker, therefore, must know where endorsers reside, and 
usually the information can be obtained most readily when 
each note is discounted, and from the person who brings 
it for discount. The information can be written on the 
note under the name of the endorser, and it will serve as 



360 THE BANKER. 

a direction to the notary-public, should the note be protest- 
ed for non-payment. The laws of our State required, 
formerly, that the notice of non-payment should be for- 
warded by mail to the post-office nearest to the residence 
of the endorser. This imposed on the banker a knowledge 
of postal locations that added much to the difficulty of his 
position. The law has since meliorated the difficulty, by 
rendering a notice sufficient, if directed to the town in 
which an endorser resides. When a banker desires to 
avail himself of this law, he had better comply literally 
with its conditions, and direct the notice "to the town of 
A" — thus showing that your letter is not sent to A, but to 
the town of A — leaving the particular post-office in the 
town (some towns have more than one) to the discretion of 
the postmaster, for whose errors you are not accountable. 
For instance, two or more post-offices are located in the 
town of Whitestown, and one of them is at a place called 
Whitestown ; hence, if you direct a notice " Whitestown," 
you designate a post-office, and it may not be the one 
which the endorser frequents. In such a case the notice 
would probably be deemed defective, and the debt would 
not be recoverable against an endorser thus notified ; but 
should you direct " to the town of Whitestown,^' you de- 
signate no post-office, and as you have performed all that 
the law requires, the endorser will be holden for the debt, 
in whatever part of the town he may reside. 

A BANKER MUST KNOW THE PECUNIARY POSITION OF HIS BANK. 

As a banker will lend to the extent of his ability, that he 
may make for his bank all the gains in his power, he must 
be well acquainted with the present pecuniary means and 
liabilities of his bank. He can keep on his table a sum- 
mary showing the precise amount of his funds, and where 



THE BANKER. 361 

they are situated, and of what they are composed ; also an 
aggregate of his various habilities. Such a summary, 
when corrected daily, or more frequently if necessary, will 
constitute a chart by which he will be able to judge 
whether he can lend, or whether he must retrench exist- 
ing loans. The funds that will be adequate to any given 
amount of liability, a banker must learn by experience, 
embarrassed as he will be by a want of uniformity in the 
results of his experience at different periods. Every bank 
must be liable, momentarily, to demands for payment of its 
bank notes and deposites, beyond its present funds. Prac- 
tically, however, if a banker has funds enough, day by day, 
to meet the requirements of the day, he has funds enough. 
" Sufficient for the day is the evil thereof," is a proverb 
peculiarly applicable to banking, 

PROSPECTIVE RESOURCES. 

But a banker must not be satisfied by knowing that his 
funds of to-day will be sufficient for the wants of to-day. 
He must possess a reasonable assurance that the same will 
be his position "to-morrow, and to-morrow, to the end of 
time." To gain this assurance, he ought to keep also be- 
fore him one or more lists in detail of his prospective re- 
sources ; showing what notes and acceptances will be pay- 
able to the bank daily for some weeks or months ahead, 
and where they are payable. With such lists, and a 
knowledge of the reliabihty of the paper thus going on. 
ward to maturity, he will be able to judge whether his 
prospective resources will need the aid of his existing un- 
employed funds ; or whether he may loan them, and even 
extend his liabilities in anticipation of a prospective sur- 
plusage of resources. 



862 THE BANKER 



PROVISION FOR THE FUTURE. 

By means of such lists as we have just described, should 
a banker discover that his existing resources will be small 
during, say, the month of June, he can aid the defect by 
discounting in the preceding May, April, or March, paper 
that will mature in June. By thus regulating prospec- 
tively his future resources, he can be always provided with 
funds. And that a banker may at all times be master of his 
resources, he should never promise prospective loans, or 
make loans with any promise of their renewal. The more 
he keeps uncommitted, the better will he be able to accom- 
modate himself to future exigencies. Banking is subject 
to sufficient uncertainties without unnecessarily aggravat- 
ing them by prospective agreements. A banker may be 
unable to fulfill such pledges, and be thus compelled to 
falsify his promises ; or he may be able to fulfill them only 
at a sacrifice of the interests of his bank, and thus be 
placed in the unwholesome dilemma of injuring his personal 
character, or of preventing the injury by only a sacrifice 
of the interests of the bank. 

GENERAL SUPERVISION. 

A banker is compelled to employ officers to whom he 
must entrust his vaults and their contents. Robberies are 
often committed by persons thus entrusted, and some such 
robberies have remained long concealed. The banker 
cannot be responsible for all such occurrences ; still, vigil- 
ance can accomplish much in the way of security against 
mischances; and the banker is responsible for the exercise 
of all practicable vigilance. Robberies and frauds possess 
usually some discoverable concomitants. No man plunders 
to accumulate property that is not to be used. Its use, 



THE BANKER. 863 

therefore, which can rarely be wholly concealed, is a clue 
which a vigilant eye can trace to the plunderer. Nearly 
every plunderer is a prodigal, and may thereby be detected ; 
nearly every plunderer is needy, and should therefore be 
suspected. The banker should know human nature, and 
be able to trace effects to their causes, and to deduce effects 
from causes. To this extent he is answerable for the 
safety of his bank. The sentinel whose post happens to be 
surprised by an enemy, may escape punishment as a crim- 
inal, but he can rarely gain commendation for vigilance, or 
escape censure for carelessness. 

OVER-DRAFTS. 

To permit over-drafts is to make loans without endorsers, 
and without the payment of interest. It is, moreover, to 
empower a dealer to control your resources. No mode of 
lending money can be more inconsistent with all safe 
banking ; and it should never be permitted. Still, every 
man who keeps a bank account can draw checks for an 
amount exceeding his balance in bank ; nor can the banker 
personally supervise the payment of checks. A vigilant 
banker will, however, provide vigilant subordinate officers. 
" The eye of the master maketh diligent," says the Scrip- 
tures. An intelligent and careful teller will soon learn 
whom he must watch ; but after all precautions, an over- 
draft may be perpetrated; and whether by accident or de- 
sign, the bookkeeper should forthwith report to the banker 
the occurrence, and he must act thereon as his judgment 
shall deem proper. 

ENFORCEMENT OF PAYMENTS. 

No system of banking can escape the casualty of doubt- 
ful debts. Usually the most favorable time to coerce pay- 
ments is when they first become payable. Then the debtor 



864 THE BANKER. 

had expected to pay, and if he is then in default, no certain 
dependence can be made on his subsequent promises. He 
is also usually less offended by a legal enforcement of pay- 
ments when they are promptly enforced, and when he 
knows the creditor is disappointed by the default, than he is 
after the default has been tacitly acquiesced in by a long 
forbearance of coercive measures. Additional security, 
when necessary, can also be more readily obtained at the 
time of the default, than it can after the debtor is become 
reconciled by time to his dishonorable position. His credit 
is better now than it will be subsequently, and he can more 
readily now than subsequently obtain responsible endorsers. 
In relation to the extension of time on receiving additional 
security on a weak debt, any extension that is productive 
of security is a less banking evil than an insecurity ; just as 
an) protraction of disease that results in health, is a less 
physical evil than death. 

ADHERENCE TO GOOD PRINCIPLES. 

A banker will be often subjected to importunity by per- 
sons who will desire a deviation from the usual modes of 
banking. They will propose a relaxation of good rules, 
and allege therefor some pressing emergency; but if the 
relaxation involves any insecurity, any violation of law or 
official duty, the banker should never submit, even when 
the result may promise unusual lucrativeness to his bank. 
While a banker adheres with regularity to known forms of 
business and settled principles, providence is a guarantee for 
his success ; but when he deviates from these, providence 
is almost equally a guarantee of disaster, both personal and 
official. 



THE BANKER. 865 

A BANKER SHOULD BEWARE OF PERSUASION, AND OF UNDUE 
PERTINACITY IN APPLICANTS. 

.Banking is a business and should be reciprocally benefi- 
cial to the borrower and the lender. When a borrower's 
business cannot yield the requisite reciprocity of benefit, he 
will often attempt to mend the defect by pertinacity of 
application, and by persuasions addressed to the directors 
of a bank, personally, as well as to the banker ; and by ser- 
vility and sycophancy. Such conduct is a strong symptom 
of some latent defect in the applicant's pecuniary position 
and the appliances should strengthen a banker in his refu* 
sal of loans, rather than facilitate their acquisition. Loans 
thus obtained rarely result favorably to tlie lender. 

A BANK SHOULD 1BEWARE OF SPECULATORS. 

No man is safe when engaged in a speculation, especially 
when the price of the article that he purchases is above the 
usual cost of its production. The speculator's intellect 
soon loses its control over him, and he will be controlled 
by his feelings, and they are unnaturally excited. He be- 
comes monomaniac in the particular concern with which 
he is engaged. He will increase his purchases beyond all 
moderation, and at prices which he himself, when he com- 
menced his purchases, would have deemed ruinous. Many 
banks are destroyed by such speculators. A bank will loan 
to them till its safety seems to require that the speculation 
must be upheld against a falling market ; and the effort is 
made till the continued decline in prices ruins both specu- 
lators and sustaining bank. 

A BANKER SHOULD KEEP INDEPENDENT OF ITS DEBTORS. 

When a debtor arrives at a certain magnitude of in- 
debtedness, he becomes the master of his creditor, who is 
somewhat in the position of Jonah when swallowed by the 



THE BANKER. 

whale. The debtor can say to a bank thus circumstanced, 
that to stop discounting for him will ruin him, and that his 
ruin will involve a loss of the existing debt. No prudent 
banker will be placed in such a position ; but should any 
banker lapse into so sad an error, he will rarely mend his 
position by yielding to the proposed necessity for further 
loans. He had better brave the existing evil than yield to 
an argument which, if already too potent to be disregarded, 
will acquire additional strength by every further discount, 
and render his inevitable fall more disastrous to his stock- 
holders, and more disreputable to himself. 

ECONOMY. 

The more a banker can reduce the amount of his con- 
tingent expenses the more easily will he make reasonable 
dividends of profit among his stockolders, without an undue 
expansion of loans, and consequent anxiety to himself. 
The income of a bank is an aggregate of only petty accu- 
mulations. The unnecessary expenditure of every hundred 
dollars the year, will nullify the interest on four ninety-day 
loans of fifteen hundred dollars each. The economy of which 
we speak is not any unjust abridgment of proper remunera- 
tive salaries to faithful officers and servants, who should, 
however, labor diligently and perseveringly in their voca- 
tions as men labor in other employments ; so that the bank 
may economize in the number of its agents, instead of econ- 
omising in the magnitude of their salaries. A hundred dol- 
lars or a thousand, when conlrasted with the capital of a 
bank, m.ay seem a small matter, and probably bank expend- 
itures are often incurred under such a contrast; but the 
true contrast lies between the expenditure and the net per- 
centage of a bank's gains. A bank whose net income 



THE MAN. 867 

will not exceed the legal rate of interest, possesses no fund 
from which to squander. And banks often expend an un- 
duly large part of their capital in architecture to ornament 
the city of their location, or to rival some neighboring- in- 
stitution whose extravagance ought to be shunned, not fol- 
lowed. No person has yet shown why banks should be 
built like palaces, while the owners of the banks are, to a 
good extent, poor, and live humbly. The custom is, per- 
bapsj founded on the delusion of deeming a great capital 
identical with great wealth. When several men, for any 
purposes of gain, unite their several small capitals, they 
may well need a larger building and more agents than each 
man would require, were he un associated ; but that the as- 
sociation can afford an organization increased in splendor 
as much as in magnitude, is a fallacy somewhat analogous 
to the blunder of the Irishman, who, hearing that his 
friend intended to walk forty miles during a day, said 
that he would walk with him, and then they could walk 
eighty miles. 

PART III. 

THE MAN. HE SHOULD BE WARY OF RECOMMENDATIONS. 

When solicited by a neighbor or a friend, few men 
possess vigor enough, or conscientiousness enough, to re- 
fuse a recommendation, or to state therein all they suspect 
or apprehend. They will studiously endeavor not to make 
themselves pecuniarily responsible by any palpable mis- 
representation ; hence they will so qualify the recommen- 
dation that it will admit of a construction consistent with 
truth ; but the qualification will be so enigmatical or sub- 
tle that the banker will not interpret it as the recommender 
will show subsequently it ought to have been inter- 



868 THE MAN. 

preted. Besides, the man who merely recommends a loan 
acts under circumstances that are much less favorable to 
caution than the man who is to lend. When we are in the 
act of" making a loan, our organization presents the danger 
with a vividness that is not excited by the act of recom- 
mending. To speculatively believe that we will suffer the 
extraction of a tooth is a wholly different matter from sit- 
ting down and submitting to the operation. Suicide 
would be far more common than it is if a man could feel 
when the act was to be performed as he feels when he only 
prospectively resolves on performing it. This preservative 
process of nature no banker should disregard, by substitut- 
ing any man's recommendation for the scrutiny of his own 
feelings and judgment at the time when the loan is to be 
consummated ; though he may well give to recommenda- 
tions all the respect which his knowledge of the recom- 
mender may properly deserve. 

HE SHOULD BE GOVERNED BY HIS OWN JUDGMENT. 

By acting according to the dictates of his own judgment, 
a man strengthens his own judgment as he proceeds ; while 
a man who subordinates his judgment to other men's is 
continually debilitating his own. Nothing also is more 
fallacious than the principle on which we ordinarily defer 
to the decision of a multitude of councillors. If fifty men 
pull together at a cable, the pull will combine the strength 
of one man multiplied by fifty ; but if fifty men deliberate 
on any subject, the result is not the wisdom of one man 
multiplied by fifty, but, at most, the wisdom of the wisest 
man of the assemblage ; just as fifty men, when they look 
at any object, can see only what can be seen by the sharp- 
est single vision of the group. They cannot combine their 
vision, and make thereof a lens as powerful as the sight of 



THE MAN. 369 

one man multiplied by fifty. A banker may, therefore, 
well resort to other men for information ; but he may differ 
from them all, and still be right ; any way, if he perform the 
dictates of his own judgment, he performs all that duty 
requires ; if he act otherwise, he performs less than his 
duty. " Let the counsel of your own heart stand," says 
the Bible ; and by way of encouragement, it adds, that a 
man can see more of what concerns himself than seven 
watchmen on a high tower. 

FINALLY. 

As virtue's strongest guarantee is an exemption from all 
motive to commit evil, a banker must avoid all engage- 
ments that may make him needy. If he wants to be more 
than a banker, he should cease from being a banker. 
Should he discover in himself a growing tendency to irri- 
tability, which his position is apt to engender, let him re- 
sist it as injurious to his bank and his peace ; and, should 
he find himself popular, let him examine whether it pro- 
ceeds from the discharge of his duties. A country banker 
was some few years ago dismissed from a bank which he 
had almost ruined, and was immediately tendered an hon- 
orary public dinner by the citizens of his village, into 
whose favor his misdeeds had unwisely ingratiated him. 
The service of massive plate, that was given to a president 
of the late United States Bank, was in reward of compli- 
ances which soon after involved in disaster every commer- 
cial interest of our country. Could we trace actions to 
their source, these mistakes of popular gratitude would 
never occur. The moroseness that we abhor, proceeds 
often from a sensitiveness that is annoyed at being unable 
to oblige ; while the amiability that is applauded, proceeds 
from an imbecihty that knows not how to refuse. 

17 



870 EULOGY ON A BODY COKPORATE. 

A banker should possess a sufficiency of legal knowledge 
to make him suspect what may be defects in proffered secu- 
rities, so as to submit his doubts to authorized counsellors. 
He must, in all things, be eminently practical. Every 
man can tell an obviously insufficient security, and an ob- 
viously abundant security ; but neither of these constitute 
any large portion of the loans that are offered to a banker. 
Security practically sufficient for the occasion is all that a 
banker can obtain for the greater number of the loans he 
must make. If he must err in his judgment of securities, 
he had better reject fifty good loans than make one bad 
debt ; but he must endeavor not to err on the extreme of 
caution, or the extreme of temerity ; and his tact in this 
particular will, more than in any other, constitute the cri- 
terion of his merits as a banker. 



EULOGY ON A BODY COKPOMTE.* 

The Ontario Bank was incorporated March 13, 1813, 
and soon thereafter commenced business at Canandaigua. 
The Legislature, on the 15th of April, 1815, authorized it 
to establish a branch, which commenced business at Utica, 
December 26, 1815, The corporation was originally to 
endure till June, 1833, but the Legislature of 1829 extend- 
ed its existence to the 1st of January, 1856, when it must 
expire ; and, as you and I have been connected with it from 
its origination, except its first six years, you, as autocrat of 
the Bank at Canandaigua, and I somewhat so of the branch 
at Utica, I desire to sketch its history, as due to you, its 
primum mobile^ and that haply the Bank in its example 
may, " though dead, yet live." 

* Published June, 1855, and addressed to Henrj B. Gibson, Cashier of the Ontario Bank 
Canandaigua. 



EULOGY ON A BODY CORPORATE. 871 

For many years the corporate capital ($500,000) was 
equally divided between both offices, but since November, 
1843, three hundred thousand dollars have been located in 
the branch, and two hundred thousand dollars in the mother 
bank. The first dividend of profits was paid May 1, 1814, 
and dividends have been paid semi-annually ever since ; 
each office contributing thereto ratably, after paying its 
own taxes, salaries, and other expenses of every kind ; 
issuing also separately its own bank-notes, and providing 
funds for their redemption. One omission, however, of a 
half-yearly dividend occurred in 1819, on an untoward oc- 
casion, which caused my appointment to the branch in 
September of that year, and your appointment to the 
mother bank a month or two subsequently. You were 
wholly unknown to the directors at Canandaigua, who 
acted therein on my judgment, an event of which our 
learned and venerable friend, the Hon. Daniel Appleton 
White, of Salem, Mass., says : " I have similar grounds 
to exult at as John Adams had at having nominated Chief- 
Justice Marshall to the United States bench." The respon- 
sibility we severally undertook was not small. The cor- 
poration was prostrate in credit, and literally a ruin. I 
forsook no employment for my new post, and therefore 
hazarded only my reputation ; but you were at New- York, 
in mercantile business, and had already acquired thereby 
$30,000 — a large accomplishment we then thought, though 
it equals in amount only about half your present established 
annual cash income ; acquired, too, not by making other 
men poorer, but by varied operations that benefited all 
their instrumentalities. 

We omitted, in May, 1837, one other dividend, by com- 
pulsion of the Legislature, on the suspension of specie 
payments throughout the Union ; but on the day the law 



372 EULOGY ON A BODY COEPORATE. 

terminated, May 16, 1838, our corporation paid its stock- 
holders ten per cent, for the suspended year. In that 
suspension of specie, our two institutions were among the 
last in the State that submitted to a necessity originating 
elsewhere ; and at a convention of bankers from all parts 
of the Union, held in New- York some months after the 
suspension, our corporation said, through us, as its dele- 
gates : " If we designate a day for the resumption of specie 
payments, persons may say that the designation is to frus- 
trate the sub-treasury bill ; and if we adjourn without des- 
ignating a day, we may be suspected of striving to create 
a National Bank. The dilemma in these suspicious times 
may be inevitable, but if our decision shall conform to our 
moral and legal obligations, its propriety may protect us 
from misconstruction. We are urged to continue in sus- 
pension, lest the public suffer a pecuniary pressure ; but, 
threatened, taunted, and despised as we are, for not com- 
plying with our obligations, no person will believe that we 
continue dishonored to protect the public which thus 
threaten, taunt, and despise us. Duty, therefore, in this 
case, as in most others, is our best chance for safety." 
The convention, however, adjourned without designating 
any day, but the banks of the State met subsequently, and 
I had the honor to draft a resolution which was adopted, 
and on which specie was resumed on the first of May then 
approaching. On the banks of the city of New- York 
rested the whole burden, expense, and danger of the re- 
' sumption, which seemed almost hopeless of permanency, 
while other cities, especially Philadelphia, continued sus- 
pended ; but time justified the measure, and the resumption 
became permanent, gradually extended over the Union, 
and has been unbroken ever since. 

The total profits which our corporation will have paid to 



EULOGY ON A BODY CORPOKATE. 373 

its stockholders on the first of January next, will be four 
hundred and eleven per cent. ; equalling seven per cent, in- 
terest the year on the capital, from its investment in 1813, 
and, in addition, $5,95 Ij^^ on every thousand dollars of 
stock ; provided the stockholder shall have kept the excess 
of dividends invested at compound interest from its recep- 
tion. Should he have kept thus invested the seven per cent, 
interest also, the whole would amount, with the capital, to 
$23,286^%^^ for every thousand dollars of original invest- 
ment. The calculation is predicated on compounding an- 
nually, though no reason exists why the owner should not 
have compounded semi-annually as the bank paid the divi- 
dends. On looking at a thousand dollars thus enlarged by 
the slow process of legal accumulation, we can see why 
prudent perseverance is usually successful ; and that men 
who jeopard their capital to acquire wealth suddenly, are 
usually only re-enacting the old fable of killing the bird 
that, if preserved, would have laid daily, for ever, a golden 
egg. The dividends, too, have been paid at different local- 
ities near the respective stockholders, who have been so 
little troubled that perhaps one cannot be found out of Can- 
andaigua, and few therein, who has ever voted on his 
stock even by proxy, or known who conducted the two 
banks except by the names on the bank-notes. The cor- 
poration has relieved, also, every stockholder from the per- 
sonal payment of all taxes on his invested capital, and has 
paid some fifty-five thousand dollars extorted by the safety 
fund. The stockholders, however, should know that one 
dividend of twenty per cent., paid on the whole capital in 
November, 1843, was paid exclusively out of the surplus 
earnings of the office at Canandaigua; and, while the dis- 
claimer may wound the susceptibilities of some whom it 
honors, I cannot resist saying that, though the dividend 



374 EULOGY ON A BODY CORPORATE. 

was a surprise on the stockholders, it was preceded by no 
effort of any knowing director or official to buy up the 
stock from unwary holders ; though custom has much 
blunted public morals to such quasi-peculations. 

In the aggregate of dividends, I include ten per cent, (it 
may be twelve) that will be paid on the first of January 
next ; and this, also, with the exception of some two per 
cent., will be the sole earning of your office. Your supe- 
rior acquisitions for our stockholders my self-love has some- 
times attributed to your location, but, as I am now at con- 
fession, I admit that the difference in our pecuniary gains 
is only a sample of our general history, verifying the pro- 
verb, that those who best manage their own affairs, are the 
best managers of the affairs of other people ; for when you 
were appointed to the bank at Canandaigua, I was worth 
just double your property, and now the proportion between 
us continues exactly the same, but the disparity is reversed, 
being in your favor. 

During your long administration, you have never been 
counselled or ordered by your board, as to what you should 
do or leave undone, or whom you should trust, or the secu- 
rities you should accept. I have been equally uncontrolled, 
though I have spontaneously written to you weekly our 
progress, and half-yearly stated our debtors. No com- 
mittee ever visited me ; no proceedings were ever criti- 
cised, and my directors were always appointed on my sole 
nomination. You and I, though sympathizing in the ser- 
vice of the same stockholders, subject to the same hopes 
and fears, and affected by the same good and evil, have, 
during the long period of our connection, met personally 
but three or four times, and then casually, briefly, and at 
long intervals; and never deliberated with each other on 
our business. Still I have always known that had my re- 



EULOGY ON A BODY COBPOEATE. ' 376 

suits been adverse to tlie stockholders, you would have de- 
tected the delinquency, and that no regard for me, though. 
we have known each other from our youth, and you have 
said often you feel towards me as a brother, would have re- 
strained you from exercising whatever painful duty the in- 
terests of the stockholders would have required. So as 
regards your board at Canandaigua, one of whom, the 
Hon. John Grei^, your President, I have known well for 
nearly half a century, courteous as he always is, and as 
sensitive towards the feelings of others as of his own honor, 
yet vigilant in pecuniary operations, acute in legal knowl- 
edge, and inflexible in integrity, had he and his compeers 
seen that your being uncontrolled was accomplishing evil 
to the stockholders, they would have been anything but 
passive. 

I never saw your board but once, and for a half hour, 
twelve years ago. They were the men who, in 1813, pro- 
cured the charter, and had been commissioners to distribute 
its stock. They had grown old with the bank, several very 
old, and all were reposing in affluence, some in princely 
magnificence, on life's toils well accomplished. They pre- 
sented a permanency of position unusual in our country. 
Those who have left the Board since, have died out; those 
that remain meet weekly as of yore, not to borrow — they 
owe nothing — but to supervise gratuitously the business 
they have undertaken for stockholders, whom time has 
scattered over our State, and in Europe, California, Illinois, 
Michigan, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Rhode-Island ; 
but who mostly are the widows and the descendants, male 
and female, collateral or lineal, in the second and third 
generation, of the original subscribers, or their early trans- 
ferrees. Not a few, however, are the first holders, venerable 
as the institution, and I hope as vigorous ; the whole repre- 



876 EULOGY ON A BODY CORPORATE. 

senting great social eminence, and including individuals 
who compute their single property by millions. 

I have vi^ithheld this sketch of our corporation till our 
branch, acting under an Act of the Legislature passed 
therefor last winter, has completed its organization for a 
renewed and independent career, lest a suspicion might be 
excited that the sketch was colored to suit that object ; and 
I am sore tempted to withhold it permanently, lest the new 
organization, judged by the record of its progenitor, suffer 
in some future contrast. Modern improvements have, 
however, remedied many of the hazards to which country 
banking was exposed. We formerly depended on casual 
stage-coach passengers, often strangers, for transmission 
among their luggage of all our cash remittances to Albany 
and New- York. When any accidents, and they were fre- 
quent, delayed unduly mail announcements that our pack- 
ages had arrived safely, we have suffered paroxysms of 
anxiety which our uniform exemption from actual loss 
failed to modify, and which time scarcely terminated before 
they were renewed by a repetition of the unavoidable 
hazard. From the sparseness, too, of population, our bor- 
rowers resided remote from the bank, often hundreds of 
miles, without our personal knowledge of their habits or 
pecuniary solvency, rendering depredation on us by forgery 
and false representations without any means of certain 
prevention. 

The first of January is, however, near, and our entire 
capital of five hundred thousand dollars will, on that day, 
be returned to its owners on demand, with the benediction 
of Shakspeare's Prince Henry : — 

" There is your crown ; 

And He who wears the crown immortally, 
Long guard it yours !" 



EULOGY ON A BODY CORPORATE. Bl*t 

neither institution having a deferred debt or one of doubt- 
ful security or unmanageable magnitude ; nor has either 
had any such debt for many years. Indeed, the total loss- 
es of both offices during the nearly forty years of our ad- 
ministration are almost literally nothing ; including forge- 
ries, over-drafts, frauds, or accidents of any kind. Our suc- 
cess I attribute much to our rigid adherence to banking in 
its utmost simplicity, relying little on our wits and much 
on our industry; soliciting no business as a favor, and con- 
ferring no loans as a gratuity ; not over- straining our dis- 
counts so as to endanger a resort to expensive shifts in the 
procurement of funds, and not seduced to receive hazard- 
ous paper by any prospect of unusual gains. 

The return of capital to the stockholders will relieve you 
from all further connection with banking, and my active 
duties therein will be transferred to one more vigorous than 
I am, and better organized and educated than I ever was 
for its cares and requirements. Mohammedan nations pos- 
sess a tradition that Solomon was blessed with a treasurer 
named Asaph, whose established vigilance repressed all at- 
tempts at imposition. When Asaph died, the Hebrew sov- 
ereign kept the event secret, and, causing the body to be 
stealthily embalmed, replaced it in the treasury, where it 
seemingly presided as usual and with continued success. 
My future position will partake somewhat of this character, 
and what I lack of the reputation of Asaph, I shall endea- 
vor to make up in active supervision. 

We, several years ago, inspected a bank whose cashier 
told us he had been an honest man till he became a bank- 
er. He would have better expressed his case by saying, 
he fiad been iionest till tempted to dishonesty ; banking no 
way leading to dishonesty, except as the fairness of the for- 
bidden fruit led to its violation. He subsequently wrote 

17* 



878 EULOGY ON A BODY CORPORATE 

me that our detection had saved him from suicide. We 
retire with happier feelings. I find nothing to regret, 
though, were the same duties to be re-enacted, I should re- 
lax more than was my wont from the stern requirements of 
abstract justice with dealers whose notions of mercantile 
punctuality were, as farmers, and followers of other uncom- 
mercial avocations, necessarily imperfect. You are, per- 
haps, more fortunate than I, even in this particular ; though 
1 suspect we both have, in our formation, a spice of impa- 
tience which our positions fostered rather than repressed. 
Uniform, also, ourselves, in health and pecuniary prosperity, 
we could not, perhaps, always allow sufficiently for the 
short-comings of physical debility and pecuniary mischan- 
ces. Yet what we meted to others, we measured to our- 
selves. The corporate capital we in no instance employed 
to reward our friends or annoy our enemies, or to gain pro- 
perty or popularity for ourselves ; but giving to our offices 
our whole time, and the whole energies of our minds, bodies, 
and feelings, we accepted therefor a fixed salary, in amount 
very moderate in the sight of all men. Finally, shielded 
by the great example which I am about to quote, we may, 
I fondly believe, on the surrender of our trusts, say to our 
stockholders and to the world, with reference to the pecu- 
niar}^ interests we have so long managed, as the prophet 
Samuel said on the termination of his greater duties : 
*' Whose ox have I taken, or whose ass have I taken ? 
Whom have 1 defrauded, or of whom have I received any 
bribe to blind my eyes therewith ?" And the response 
must be as in the case of the prophet : " Thou hast not 
defrauded us nor oppressed us, neither hast thou taken 
aught from any man's hand.'' 

Ontario Branch Bank, Uiica, June 1, 1855. 



REVIEW, ETC., OF A COUNTRY BANK. 379 



EEVIEW OF ''THE EsTEENAL MANAGEMENT OE A COUNTKY . 

BAM."* 
Much of the present work appeared in detached parts, 
for the last three years, in the London Bankers' Magazine. 
The autlior has now re-arranged the subject into a more 
methodica] series, and has greatly enlarged the original 
text. The letters profess to be written to a young man of 
twenty-six years of age, who has been recently promoted 
from a clerkship to the management of a branch bank, in 
a country town. We do not recollect that the mentor 
has stated anywhere his own station or position, but we 
may infer, from his knowledge and advice, that he is sup- 
posed to be an old banker, and occupying the higher sta- 
tion of General Manager, which seems to be a term applied 
in England to an independent, or (as we should say in Amer- 
ica,) a mother bank, in contradistinction to a manager of a 
branch bank, and who is hence styled a Branch Manager. 
An acute English philosopher, Godwin, bas said that 
Locke wrote on the Human Understanding, not by reason 
that he possessed more knowledge on the subject than 
other men, but that he possessed more knowledge by reason 
of his having written thereon. We may apply the same 
remark to the present treatise on banking, and whatever 
may have been the author's stock of banking knowledge 
when he commenced his letters, he has at least instructed 
himself into a degree of proficiency that must make his 
services uncommonly valuable in the important station 
he is said to occupy in a city which is secondary in Eng- 
land to only London. Except for this resulting benefit to 
a didactic author, we might well doubt how far literary 

* The Internal Management of a Country Bank. A series of letters on the functions 
and duties of a Branch Manager. By Thomas Bullion. 18mo., pp. 203. London. 



880 REVIEW OF " THE INTERNAL MANAGEMENT 

occupation can be compatible with the absorbing duties of 
an active banker ; but thus viewed and limited, we find 
that the two occupations aid rather than obstruct each 
other. 

The author seems to have been governed by two distinct 
objects : to instruct a young banker in the duties of his 
profession, and to instruct commercial men how to deal 
with banks, so as to obtain the proper banking aids, which 
alone can result advantageously to themselves and to 
banks. In both these undertakings the author has been 
eminently successful. His instructions are given in lan- 
guage so plain, and in a style so lucid, that a single ambig- 
uity cannot easily be found in the whole book ; while the 
arrangements are so natural that a distinct understanding 
of the subject cannot be avoided by the most casual and 
hasty reader. The author has clearly understood what he 
has sought to impart, (an attainment not universal,) and to 
this, probably, more than to any great elaboration, we may 
impute the success which has been attained. 

Till reading this work we were not apprised of the great 
difference that exists between the modes of country bank- 
ing in England and in this country ; and we are inclined 
to think that the book can impart to us a knowledge of 
these differences, to a very interesting extent ; and thus 
yield, to the American reader, a useful purpose wholly un- 
expected to the author, and un appreciable by an English 
reader, to whom the usages referred to are already known. 
And though our modes of business are greatly different 
from much that is detailed in the bogk, yet the prudential 
motives inculcated, with reference to English transactions, 
are all applicable to our transactions ; and the human na- 
ture which the English banker has described, will assail the 
American banker in some modes essentially the same as it 



OF A COUNTRY BANK." 881 

has to be encountered by the English banker. An Amer- 
ican banker, for instance, will not meet with approaches 
precisely bke the following ; but he will meet them in some 
other shape, in which they will be equally troublesome : — 

" It may, as you state, be a trial to your feelings to have 
to refuse an advance to a gentleman of excellent family and 
disposition, with whom, probably, the previous day you 
have dined, and with whom you are in the habit of con- 
stant and friendly intercourse. But this is on the hypothe- 
sis that a banker is entitled to have feelings, which, how- 
ever, the best authorities distinctly deny. 'Business is bu- 
siness/ they will tell you ; and there is no more occasion 
for the exercise of ' the feelings ' in declining to lend a 
gentleman money without security, than in declining to 
make a bet, or go a voyage, or make a tour with him, or 
anything else that is simply inconvenient. It may be an 
amiable weakness to think and act otherwise ; but if a bad 
debt, or a series of them, is to be the price of this amiabili- 
ty, the sooner your disposition is soured the better. I would 
remark, further, that the gentleman who places you in the 
unamiable position of having to refuse his cheque, is him- 
self the aggressor. And, as by that act he shows no re- 
spect for your feelings, it does not appear upon what ground 
you are called upon to show any unusual tenderness for 
his." 

We find, incidentally, that the absence of usury laws in 
England, on commercial paper, results in a banking difli- 
culty, which is never experienced by us, where the rates of 
discount being established by law, no man expects a devia- 
tion therefrom, except under some peculiar circumstances. 
In England an agreement about the rate seems to be the 
rule of business, rather than the exception ; — it seems also 



S62 REVIEW OF ''THE INTERNAL MANAGEMENT 

to afford a criterion whereby a banker is enabled to form 
a judgment of the solvency of his dealer — for instance : — 

'' The rates of discount levied latterly upon Barnes' bills 
were exorbitant, as compared with the prevailing rates of 
the day. I infer from that, that upon this point he had be- 
come indifferent — a deadly symptom of incipient insolvency. 
When the customer becomes regardless of the interest on 
his account, let the banker look well to the principal. No 
man doing a business which renders him largely dependent 
upon procuring discounts, can well become indifferent to 
the rates of discount, until he has reached that point when 
the question with him is not one of discount and commis- 
sion, but of mercantile existence. When a man asks you, 
therefore, in ordinary times, to discount certain bills for 
him, and to ' charge what you like,' be sure he is tempting 
you bv a higher premium than ordinary, to a more than or- 
dinary risk. , I believe I entertain as hearty a dislike to the 
whole tribe of * screws ' as I have heard you frequently 
and vigorously express ; but better endure a half-hour's 
huxtering over the discount on a good bill, than a whole 
year's remorse over the lost principal of a bad one." 

The word '' currency" seems to be used in England with 
a different meaning from that which it signifies here, where 
it ordinarily means the circulating medium of the country, 
— the money that will pass without a discount. In Eng- 
land it means the period which a bill has to run before it 
becomes payable — thus : 

'*I allude to the currency of bills. Now, whatever the 
state of the money-market may be, a banker will prefer a 
short-dated bill to one of longer currency — and for obvious 
reasons. In the first place, the risk is less. In the ordinary 
course of things, more firms will give way in six months 



OF A COrXTRY B-O'K.'"' 

than in three. I say it with respect; but there is always 
a better chance of the first house in England standing for 
three months than for six. In the next place, the banker 
could, for every bill at six months' date, discount two at 
three months' date within a given period ; and so make 
his resources doubly available to his customers. If you 
have a certain sum that you can prudently lay out in dis- 
counts, and you select for this purpose bills not exceeding 
three months' currency, it is obvious that, at the expiration 
of the three months, you have the same amount to invest 
again ; whereas, if you were to lock it up in the discount of 
six month's bills, double the space of time would elapse be- 
fore you were in a position to repeat the operation. The 
result for the year would be, supposing your capital avail- 
able for discounts to be £50,000, and that you invested it 
in the shorter-dated bills, that you would turn this capital 
over four times within the year; whereas, by selecting the 
longer-dated securities, you would turn it over twice only. 
In the one case, your discounts to parties would amount 
to £200,000 per annum ; in the other, to only half that sum." 

Accommodation drafts are one of the dangers of English 
banking, as they are of American banking, and with the 
further disadvantage in Ens^land, that they appear to be 
taken there without endorsers more frequently than they 
are by our inland bankers. The shrewdness with which a 
practiced banker will detect them, amid all the disguises 
with which their true character is sought to be concealed, 
is thus portrayed : — 

" It is true that the instrument has the appearance of a 
bill. It is formal!}* dated from Mr. Bowdler's place of res- 
idence, drawn at three months' date, and humorously ac- 
cepted by David Starkey, payable at his banker's in Lon- 
don, — David, however, being as innocent of ' keeping a 
banker ' in London as the banker thus honored is of the 



884 REVIEW OF "THE INTERNAL MANAGEMENT 

faintest knowledge of Mr. David Stark ey. I adnnit, then, 
that it has the appearance of a bill of exchange — ^just as a 
bad shilling has a spurious resemblance to a good one. 
But do not hope to palm off such a document in the money 
market as a bill representing an actual business transaction, 
be it ever so dexterously ' got up.' Let it be drawn, if you 
will, for an amount much less than the stamp will cover, 
(a rare case with this class of bills). Instead of an even 
sum in pounds, let it be drawn for a sum in pounds, shil- 
lings and pence, (a case equally rare,) — let even the value 
received be an express one, (flour, bullocks, or malt, for ex- 
ample,) in a word, draw it as you will, it is slill Bowdler 
on Starkey — 'Pioj upon Bacon ' — to the comprehension of 
the meanest capacity in the bill market. If you doubt this, 
and ever have occasion to send a batch of bills to your bro- 
ker for discount, just try the experiment of inserting here 
and there, in the remittance, (quite promiscuously of course) 
a few choice bills of the Bowdler species ; and they will be 
picked out with a certainty and cunning amounting to in- 
tuition, and either sent you back direct, or civilly ' set aside 
to wait your further instructions.' There is as little hope 
of their escaping the detection of a practiced eye, as there 
is of one ot her Majesty's light sovereigns passing muster at 
her Majesty's receipt of customs." 

The book abounds with excellent rules and pungent max- 
ims, for the conduct of a banker under every emergency, 
and for a right estimate of every species of business, and 
every kind of banking security ; and were we to undertake 
to quote all that is interesting and useful, vve could not 
quote less than the whole book. We, however, are parti- 
cularly pleased with an incidental remark to the young 
banker, that he should "beware of the notion that what he 
chiefly owes to himself is an earnest seeking after salary. 



OF A COUNTRY BANK. 385 

It may and will come as an effect of good conduct, but it 
should never be the cause of our good conduct." This may 
be deemed somewhat transcendental, but we are certain it 
abounds in wisdom. When God asked Solomon to choose 
what should be given him, he did not ask for riches or long 
life, but simply for wisdom, that he might rule wisely. The 
wisdom which he thus obtained brought with it, as a ne- 
cessary consequence, both riches and long life ; and we may 
find continually in every department of life, that selfishness 
is more likely to defeat than to gain its end ; and that the 
surest means of prosperity is a faithful fulfillment of our 
duties, and with as little direct selfishness as possible. We 
agree, therefore, entirely with our author when he says : — 

" In fulfilling the duties you owe to your clients, on the 
one hand, with undeviating fairness, and to your directors 
on the other, with invincible rectitude, you best fulfill the 
few duties you owe to yourself." 

We also like the following : 

"And sometimes next in importance to a duty itself is 
the manner of its fulfillment. You will not invariably be 
the messenger of glad tidings from your directors to your 
clients ; but an unpleasant communication need not be em- 
bittered in its effects by harshness in the mode of its deliv- 
ery. You have to intimate, perhaps, to Mr. Smith, that 
the trifling accommodation applied for by that gentleman, 
and transmitted to the directors for approval, cannot be 
granted. The fact very probably is, that Mr. Smith is not 
trustworthy for the advance, but there is no absolute ne- 
cessity that you should tell him so. Without impugning 
his credit to his teeth, the refusal will be galling enough to 
a man of sanguine disposition — and of this description I 
should say are all who apply for impossible advances." 



386 REVIEW OF '* THE INTERN"AL MANAGEMENT 

We shall close our notice of this truly valuable and sug- 
gestive book by a couple of anecdotes in relation to a 
country bank in England, under the operation of a run for 
specie. The extracts are interesting, by reason that we 
have nothing in our country precisely similar. Our coun- 
try banks are never run for specie ; all that is required of 
them is to pay by sight drafts on the commercial city of 
the State in which the country bank is located. The At- 
lantic banks are, however, occasionally subjected to such ' 
runs, but very rarely ; and, acting in concert with each 
other, a solvent bank can always pay, except in times 
which cause a general suspension of specie payments by 
all the banks. 

The writer remarks : — 

" The only individual in the community, indeed, who 
cannot with impunity request a creditor to call again to- 
morrow, is the banker. Not that he gets payment of the 
debts owing to him with less trouble than other people ; on 
the contrary, the banker is about the last person that a 
trader — particularly if he is in contemplation of bank- 
ruptcy — thinks of paying. Nevertheless, custom so rules 
it, that the banker shall pay his debts, principal and in- 
terest, whenever called upon to do so ; and if he shall fail 
to do this, the Gazette is too good for him. 

" It is in vain that a thousand channels of intelligence 
have again and again conveyed to the public ear the fact 
that you and all other bankers do not hold the whole of 
your deposits, in the shape of bank notes or gold, in your 
tills ; and that to enable you to pay interest upon them, 
you have lent out the greater portion in making advances, 
and discounting bills, in the support and development of 
the trade of your distiict. The answer will be, that this 
may be all very true; that they, your depositors, are par- 



OF A COUNTRY BANK.'* 887 

ticularly sorry, but that — they want their money, and must 
have it. 

"But never despair, nor exhibit the slightest trepidation 
during the fiercest run, because nothing could be more 
fatal. If those v^rho come first, see that you are excited and 
alarmed, they will not fail to conclude that there is grave 
cause for your alarm, nor will they fail to tell their neigh- 
bors so wherever they meet them ; and thus possibly a run, 
that a little coolness might have averted, may be turned 
into a rush that will overwhelm you." 

But the anecdotes : — 

"During the panic of 1847, the manager of a remote 
branch of a joint-stock bank called his accountant aside 
after the close of business one afternoon, and addressed 

him in terms something like these : ' Now, Mr. ', you 

see how matters stand. I am off to head-office for more 
cash. You must work the branch through to-morrow 
somehow — I give you carte blanche.'' And he did wisely. 
His accountant had just that sort of coolness, with a dash 
of audacity in it, fitted for such emergencies. There was 
a great rush of depositors with their receipts for payment 
the next day. He told them (quietly mending his pen the 
while) that he was very sorry, but a recent order of the 
directors was imperative — ' No deposit to be taken or paid 
short of ten days' notice.' The manager, if he were at 
home, which he would be to-morrow, might, perhaps, break 
through the rule ; but as for himself, he was only a clerk, 
and couldn't afford to lose his situation. And he didn't. 

" During the same panic, a cashier in the head-office of 
one of the banks which were then run upon, had a check 
presented to him for payment, of an amount which he actu- 
ally had not funds in the till to meet at the moment. He, 
therefore, with a daring humor, wrote in the corner of the 



388 REVIEW OF " THE PHILOSOPHY OF 

check 'no funds,' which was true enough in one sense — 
seeing there were no funds in the bank to meet it — and 
dishonored the check. The transaction caused the with- 
drawal of a fine account, but it saved the bank. 

•* One other anecdote, and relative to the same period, 
and I quit the subject. The manager of a certain branch 
found himself, at the close of business, one arduous day, 
with little over £50 in his till, whilst it was impossible, be- 
fore afternoon of next day, to increase his reserve. His 
accountant, a quick-witted fellow, before starting for head- 
office, quietly locked the cash safe (keeping the fact to 
himself), put the key in his pocket, and took it with him, 
rightly judging that it would be better for the manager 
next day to meet his depositors with no money and a good 
excuse, than with a beggarly £50 and no excuse at all. 
The ruse succeeded. The manager had no difficulty in 
showing what he really felt, namely, a good deal of un- 
easiness, and the locksmith vainly laboring for hours to 
pick the impracticable lock, completed the illusion. The 
depositors, full of sympathy for the manager, with one ac- 
cord agreed to call again in the afternoon, which they did, 
and their demands w^ere satisfied." 



REVIEW OP "THE PHILOSOPHY OF JOINT STOCK BANKING."* 

In England banking was conferred in 1708, as a mono- 
poly, upon the Governor and Company of the Bank of 
England ; but individuals, and partnerships of not more than 
six members, were permitted to act as bankers. The re- 

* The Philosophy of Joint Stock Banking, by G. M. Bell. 18mo., pp. 105. London. 



JOINT STOCK BANKING." 889 

striction on the number of partners was removed in 1826 
(after -a persistence therein of one hundred and eighteen 
years), except that it was still retained in London, and in 
a circuit of country extending sixty-five miles around the 
city ; and except further, that the enlarged partnerships 
were prohibited from issuing bank-notes payable in Lon- 
don or from drawing bills thereon for a smaller sum than 
£50. Still, for this small relaxation of its monopoly, the 
Bank of England was compensated by a permission to 
establisli branches in any part of England ; and it accord- 
ingly soon opened branch banks in every principal town, 
*' much to the dissatisfaction and annoyance of country 
bankers, who could not compete with the branches in low- 
ness of discount, or other facilities that the branches were 
able to give." 

In 1833 the Bank of England's monopoly was further 
relaxed by a removal of the restriction which had pre- 
vented country banks from issuing notes payable in Lon- 
don, and from issuing drafts thereon for less sums than 
£50 ; and we infer that the restriction was removed which 
had prevented the establishment in and around London of 
banking partnerships composed of more than six members, 
for Mr. Bell says, " the first Joint Stock Bank established 
in London was in 1834." In other parts of England, joint 
stock banking commenced in 1826, and Mr. Bell's banking 
career commenced about simultaneously, for his book was 
published in 1840, and he says it is " the result of fourteen 
years' personal experience of Joint Stock Banking, in the 
successive offices of cashier, accountant, branch-manager, 
and sub-manager.'' 

The gradations thus classified seem like retrogressions 
rather than promotions, for in our banks the cashier* is 

* An English cashier seems to be the functionary whom we call teller— the person 
who pays checks and counts deposits. 



890 REVIEW OF " THE PHILOSOPHY OF 

usually the highest executive officer, while an accountant 
is inferior in grade to several persons ; but Mr. Bell's gra- 
dations were, doubtless, upwards, and we tbence infer that 
he belongs to the class of distinguished persons whom we 
in America estimate fondly as self-made men, in contra- 
distinction to men who attain honorable stations by favor- 
able parentage, wealth, or other accidental advantages. 
With us, a self-made man holds the relation to a hereditary 
man that a good seedling fruit-tree holds to a grafted tree. 
While the grafted tree is yet a sapling, we know the flavor, 
size, and other qualities which will pertain to its fruit ; but 
the seedling may produce fruit that will surpass every 
known variety. So a man reared amid affluence, and gra- 
duated at some good university, is a graft, of whom, while 
yet a youth, we may predicate what dogmas he will know 
at manhood, and what thoughts and aspirations will be ex- 
hibited by him ; but a man who collects information casu- 
ally, who originates his own thoughts, makes his own ex- 
pedients, and develops his ethics from his own experience 
and reflections, is a seedling who may excel in all desirable 
characteristics. Our Franklin was a seedling, our Fulton, 
and our best statesmen, soldiers, merchants, mechanics, 
and inventors, are, to a great extent, seedlings — excepting 
always our literati, who, as a class, are all grafts from 
English stocks, to some one of which every poet, essayist, 
novelist, and historian can as easily be traced as you can 
trace a golden pippin. 

Mr. Bell's "Philosophy of Joint Stock Banking" is divided 
into chapters which, at successive periods of leisure, were 
originally published separately as leading articles in one of 
the London journals, and in the year 1840 were collected 
by the author and published in their present form. Bank- 
ing literature was commenced earlier in England than in 



JOINT STOCK BANKING." 891 

our country, where we have but recently begun to know 
that any such branch of literature exists ; hence the pres- 
ent book, which otherwise might be deemed old, is sub- 
stantially new. Nothing is more encouraging to specula- 
tive investigation than the expansibility which every sub- 
ject seems capable of attaining. Astronomy and geometry 
are but fair examples of the vast volumes which can be 
intellectually elaborated from the most simple premises ; 
for nothing is more simple th?n the glimpses we can 
attain of the sun, moon, and stars, that are the foundation 
of astronomy, or the curves and angles that are the founda- 
tion of geometry. Thought on any subject produces 
thought; hence a compound progression attends all our in- 
tellectual labors, and renders the exhaustion of any study 
impossible. Banking literature promises to constitute no 
exception to the general principle. Its. cultivation in our 
country we owe primarily to the Magazine whose pages 
we are employing, and which, with a kindred publication 
in Boston, is benefitting American bankers by enabling 
them to learn speculatively the business processes that were 
formerly known only practically. Had a man to select 
whether his knowledge of any business should be exclu- 
sively practical, or exclusively speculative, he might well 
select practical knowledge as more available for his main- 
tenance ; but a man's business practices are improved by 
pondering on them speculatively ; and the means which 
exist for thus pondering may be classed among the im- 
provements of our remarkable era. Nearly every industrial 
pursuit is become the subject of speculative investigation 
in some periodical publication which is devoted to the given 
subject ; and we find published in the City of New- York, 
" The Turners' Companion," " The American Agricultur- 
ist," " American Artisan," " American Architect," " The 



892 REVIEW OF "the philosophy of 

Tailors' Eclectic Eepository," and kindred magazines and 
journals on numerous other handicrafts. Franklin's old 
proverb, " he who by the plow would thrive, must either 
hold the plow or drive," is improved by the addition : "he 
who by the plow would thrive, must toil in thought as well 
as drive." 

But while we would urge men of every occupation to 
work intellectually, we would caution them against ^^the 
common error of itinerant lecturers, who, in recommend- 
ing intellectual culture to mechanics and merchants' clerks, 
estimate nothing as intellectual but literature. Literature 
is employed in academies and colleges as means for de- 
veloping the intellect of youth, hence probably proceeds 
the vulgar error that nothing is intellectual but literature. 
Without the application of his intellect, no man can be- 
come a good tailor, blacksmith, banker, or merchant, but 
he may become eminently intellectual in either of these 
employments with almost no literature. Indeed, the great 
difference which is discoverable in artisans of the same 
craft proceeds from the different degrees in which they 
apply their intellects to their several pursuits. Practice 
will make perfect, as the proverb asserts, but practice must 
be directed by the intellect, or the perfection which the 
proverb promises will apply only to facility of execution, 
not to excellence of quality. In every city the work of 
some one shoemaker is superior to the work of all com- 
petitors. The like may be said of hatters, tailors, ship- 
builders. Self-love whispers to the indolent that such dif- 
ferences among men are organic ; but in all organic phys- 
ical differences, as the height of men, their muscular 
strength, &.C., the differences are trivial. We shall, there- 
fore, accord best with the analogies of nature when we 
attribute to different degrees of intellectual application, 



898 

rather than to organization, the differences which we dis- 
cover in men's business productions. John Jacob Astor 
owed his great success in life to great intellectual efforts in 
all matters pertaining to his several employments, but he 
was so illiterate as to misspell very common monosyllables. 
Men of muscular toil are often informed of the literary at- 
tainments of some " learned blacksmith," and are urged to 
acquire similar accomplishments ; but a literary black- 
smith is as little likely to become a good blacksmith, as 
the literary pig, exhibited formerly in London, was likely 
to become good pork. 

But Mr. Bell says, that a bank manager may, without 
disadvantage, " be a man of great erudition, and of litera- 
ry and scientific eminence." Mr. Bell knows, being him- 
self distinguished in these attainments ; yet we will ven- 
ture to assert that, ordinarily, a man will be none the worse 
banker, perhaps some the better, for confining his intellec- 
tual studies to his business. The best writers on law, 
medicine, and surgery, have always been skillful practition- 
ers in their professions, while persons who busy themselves 
in a literature disconnected from their active business, are 
rarely very prosperous in their business. English banking 
is not without its example, for the banker who attained cel- 
ebrity in Italian literature, was. unsuccessful as a practi- 
cal banker. 

Mr. Bell's book proves, however, that his devotion to 
literature has not interfered with his banking usefulness; 
for though his main design, which he has ably accomplished, 
is to explain the business of banking to uninitiated read- 
ers, his book is full of detail that must be instructive to 
the most practiced banker. The general principle he has 
evolved, is, doubtless, true everywhere : that " the entire 
security and whole system of banking rest upon manage- 

18 



894 REVIEW OF " THE PHlLOSOPliY OF 

ment.'' Nearly every other business requires only the ap- 
plication to it of some definite means to obtain some fixed 
end, while banking must constantly contend against every 
new artifice by which ingenuity may hope to elude vigil- 
ance ; consequently, nothing is sufficient for the security 
of a banker, but a vigilance as comprehensive and versa- 
tile as the possibility of attack. 

To American readers, with their present enlightenment 
on the subject. Mr. Bell's book is principally valuable for 
the insight which it yields into the social customs and busi- 
ness operations of England, and their contrast with ours. 
A man, for instance, who controls a bank, is, with us, an 
autocrat, towards whom the community in which he is sit- 
uated are wont to evince the gratitude which flows "from 
the expectation of future benefits." Even his directors are 
often as dependent for perpetuity of station on his careful- 
ly accumulated proxies, as he is on their voices ; with one 
advantage on his side, that while they must act aggregate- 
ly before they can displace him, he acts on them segregate- 
ly, as they severally become applicants to the bank for 
loans, or need his proxies to continue them in office ; hence 
when the book deprecates for the bank manager, that he 
shall be treated " with the respect and friendship of the 
directors, b} whom he should be considered in every re- 
spect (as far as regards the bank) at least upon an equally 
elevated footing with themselves," we involuntarily smile 
as we picture to ourselves the Magnus Apollo of some one 
of our Wall-street two-million banks, deprecating the re- 
spect of his Board ; or more ludicrously still, we think of 
President Biddle, as he once arrived, in New- York from 
Philadelphia, laden with bank post-notes, and made a kind 
©f triumphal progress through Wall-street, like " Csesar, 
with a Senate at his heels." 



895 

But the bank manager in England possesses an advan- 
tage over us, when he turns from his board to a portion of 
his dealers, as we find by the following: " How often has 
the fear of being seen by the watchful and reproving eye 
of his banker, deterred the young tradesman from joining 
the company of riotous and extravagant friends ? How 
often has it kept him from the tavern, the club-room 
and places of public amusement and dissipation ? What 
has been his anxiety to stand well in the estimation of his 
banker ? Has it not been a subject of concern with him 
to be found regular in attendance on his business, keeping 
intercourse only with persons of respectability and good 
conduct ? Has not the frown of his banker been of more 
influence with him than the jeers and discouragement of 
his triends ? Has he not trembled to be supposed guilty of 
deceit, or the slightest misstatement, lest it should give rise 
to suspicion, and his accommodation be, in consequence, 
restricted or discontinued ? Has not the prudent advice 
and admonition of his banker opened his eyes to the reck- 
less and ruinous course which he may have been unwit- 
tingly pursuing? And has not that friendly advice been 
of more value to him in a temporal and moral point of 
view than that of his relations — or, very possibly, of his 
priest ?" 

We believe, also, nothing like the following is true of 
our bankers : — 

" It is an unquestionable fact, that a large proportion of 
the customers of every bank are more or less under obli- 
gation to the bank for temporary or permanent advances ; 
and, as a matter of course, it is their individual inclination 
and interest, by all possible means, to stand well in the esti- 
mation of their banker. To do anything contrary to what 
may be supposed the wishes of that functionary, would ac- 



396 REVIEW OF " THE PHILOSOPHY OF 

cordingly be very far distant from the mind of any man 
who had an overdrawn account, or who required occasion- 
al accommodation upon a bill. The banker, fully aware of 
this mighty influence which he necessarily enjoys over his 
customer, has not unfrequently exercised it for political, as 
well as other purposes ; and were scrutinies to be made of 
the result of election contests, it would be found that in 
many districts the successful candidate owed no small part 
of his majority to the interest and influence of the banks, 
though it might sometimes happen, on the other hand, that 
the minority was swelled by the like rival interest." 

In the State of New-York every bank must transact its 
business at its own counter, with only one ancient acci- 
dental exception in favor of the Ontario Rank of Canan- 
daigua, which, possesses, till the year 1856, the power to 
maintain a branch bank at Utica. In England, however, 
and Wales, four hundred and forty-five branch banks were, 
in the year 1839, owned by one hundred and three joint- 
stock banks, and so entirely reasonable is the power there 
deemed, that Mr. Bell says, " as well might the Legislature 
enact that a merchant should confine himself to one place 
of business, or that a ship-owner should trade only to one 
port," as prevent a bank from establishing branches. But 
all men seem not of the same opinion, even in England ; for, 
when evidence on the subject was taken before a commit- 
tee of Parliament, we find, " one banker is entirely opposed 
to branches, another considers that they ought to be within 
the distance of an easy day's ride, to and from the parent 
bank: a third is inclined to think the distance should be 
limited to one, or, at most, two counties ; while a fourth 
asserts that no difficulty exists in managing branches at 
a distance of two hundred miles and upwards, from the 
head office." 



JOINT STOCK BANKING." 397 

The power to create branch banks at will, has occa- 
sioned the following discrimination in the names by which 
English banks designate themselves : 

" Many of the joint stock banks are distinguished by 
the name of * district banks,' as the Manchester and Liver- 
pool District Bank, the Yorkshire District Bank. These 
names indicate that those banks have been formed for the , 
pm'pose of supplying the advantages of a good system of 
banking to the Manchester, and Liverpool, and Yorkshire 
districts, respectively ; and that offices or branch banks 
are opened in subordination to the head bank, in different 
towns throughout those districts of country. Other banks 
are distinguished by the name of 'provincial,' as the Provin- 
cial Bank of England, and the Provincial Bank of Ireland, 
indicating that those establishments are severally for the 
purpose of diffusing a well organized system of banking 
throughout the provinces of England and Ireland. Other 
establishments, again, are designated by the different quar- 
ters of the kingdom in which they are located, as the East 
of England Bank, the North of England Joint Stock Bank, 
implying that their operations are limited to those quar- 
ters." 

A joint stock bank, in England, seems to be only a 
species of private partnership, rather than an incorporation 
of many natural persons into one artificial person, as a 
bank is with us. The company is formed on "a deed of 
settlement, which prescribes the duties devolved upon the 
directors, and invests them with the power and privileges 
necessary to the full discharge of those duties." The or- 
ganization is completed by the procurement of a " license 
given by Act of Parliament," but the object of the license 
seems merely fiscal, enabling the bank to compound for 
issuing bank notes without stamps, and subserving some 



398 REVIEW OF " THE PHILOSOPHY OF 

other purposes connected with the revenues of Govern- 
ment. 

The essential difference between such a bank and ours, 
consists in the limited liability of our bank stockholders, 
while in theirs, " the joint stock banks being, with a few 
exceptions in Scotland, unchartered companies, and there 
being no restriction as to the liability of the shareholders, 
each shareholder is liable to the public creditor to the last 
farthing of his property." 

We commend the following to a numerous class of per- 
sons who seem to think that banking is the distribution of 
favors to needy friends or necessitous merit, and hence feel 
aggrieved when they are not supplied with loans, irrespec- 
tive wholly of the banking merits of their applications : — 

"A banker is one who deals in money. This money is 
his merchandise, which his duty and interest require him 
to buy and sell to the best advantage." " A merchant en- 
gaged in trade, procures his stock at as low a price as pos- 
sible, and sells again at the best price he can persuade the 
public to give him, the difference being bis profit, or loss, as 
the case may be. A banker acts on the same principle. 
He lends out his capital on the highest terms he can 
get." 

The following description of a bank director is, we trust, 
drawn from life : 

" A bank director should be a man of strict integrity 
and uprightness. This is a quality perfectly indispensable 
to the welfare of the bank. He must be above all traffic- 
ing in the stock of the Company, or taking any undue ad- 
vantage over the other shareholders, through his intimate 
knowledge of the state of their affairs, as regards the bank. 
He must never, for a moment, forget, that while he is a 



399 



partner in the concern, and, as an honest man, is bound to 
conduct it in as faithful and diligent a manner as he would 
his own private affairs, that he is at the same time appoint- 
ed to a solemn trust, in having the interests of numerous 
others, equally interested with himself, under his manage- 
ment and control. In fact, unless the director of a bankis 
a man of strict integrity, he is placed in a position calcula- 
ted to be productive of great mischief. He is invested with 
power to ruin the fortunes of others, and to inflict much 
commercial evil upon the community. Where there is a 
want of integrity, there is a want of capacity, and the bank 
must necessarily be mismanaged." 

We fear, however, that English human nature is not 
much better than American, for Mr. Bell thinks — 

*' It would be a most wholesome regulation, were it stip- 
ulated in all deeds of settlement, that no bank director 
should be privileged to overdraw his account. The great 
facilities which directors enjoyed of raising money from 
overdrawing their bank accounts, have, in some instances, 
resulted in extensive commercial disasters, and in the total 
wreck of large establishments. The temptation to specu- 
ations of all descriptions which such facilities hold out, ne- 
cessarily increases the risk of the bank, and induces no rigid 
inspection of the accommodation afforded to other custom- 
ers. Where those who are entrusted with the manage- 
ment of the bank forget the extent and importance of the 
trust reposed in them, and begin to enter into unwarranta- 
ble speculations with the funds committed to their care, it 
is not supposable that they will be particularly scrupulous 
as to the general management pursued by others." 

Mr. Bell's book abounds with excellent observations, and 
we have quoted only from portions of it that we think least 



400 REVIEW OF "THE PHILOSOPHY OF 

known to our readers. With the same design we will close 
our too brief review of so valuable a book, by some ex- 
tracts from his chapter on re discounts ; for, though the 
practice is not resorted to by our country banks as exten- 
sively as it seems to be by English banks, yet re-discounts 
are practiced, and we do not remember to have ever be- 
fore seen the subject discussed on its banking merits : — 

" A bank whose capital is either not commensurate with 
its business, or imprudently invested, becomes dependent, 
in a large measure, upon re-discounts. The facilities which 
exist for this, are chiefly confined to London bill-brokers. 
Few banks have any arrangements with those houses for 
permanent or stated advances, nor might such engage- 
ments be at all times convenient for either party. Banks 
therefore, which are in the position alluded to, are often put 
to incredible inconvenience from the caprice and disoblig- 
ing manner of bill-brokers. The remedy for this is obvi- 
ously for a bank to confine its operations within the prudent 
limits of its own capital. To conduct a large business with 
a small capital, and depend on the London market, or even 
its own credit with other establishments, for the re-discount 
of bills, is a very unsound and unsafe system, and altogeth- 
er an error in banking. The bank that is under the neces- 
sity of constantly re-discounting its London paper, how- 
ever large may be the profits it is enabled to divide among 
its shareholders, is evidently laboring with too small a cap- 
ital. In fact, wherever large dividends are declared, there 
can be no doubt the bank is working on too small a capital. 
The official returns made by joint stock banks show that 
numerous establishments in the manufacturing and mining 
districts possess very inadequate capitals, and the same fact 
is revealed by the large quantity of paper bearing the en- 
dorsement of these banks kept constantly afloat in the mo- 
ney market. 



JOINT STOCK BANKING." 40l 

*' It is perfectly practicable for a bank to confine its oper- 
ations wiihin its own available capital so as to avoid re- 
course to the discount market, and it is at all limes desira- 
ble that this should be practiced, though it is not at all 
limes convenient, nor in ail cases profitable. But no bank, 
whose chief business is that of discounting bills, being at 
the same time a bank of issue, can be considered secure 
with a small capital. The very process of re-discounting, 
which is the great source of its profits, multiplies its obli- 
gations with such amazing rapidity that the liabilities of 
many small banks in this way would be incredible, were 
fact, and the process by which it is accomplished, less fa- 
miliar to the community. It is not a sufficient argument 
against this statement, that if a bank is to hold these re- 
discounted bills as liabilities, they are entitled to take credit 
for them as assets. As a matter of accounting, this is 
doubtless correct ; but as affecting the stability of the 
bank, the matter must be contemplated in a different light. 
The risk which the bank runs is multiplied in propor- 
tion to the amount of bills re-discounted. A bank with a 
capital of £40,000, having bills run'.iing to the amount of 
£300,000, would have its whole capital swept away by a 
percentage of loss that would not be ruinous on its original 
discounts. Now it cannot be doubted that this statement 
represents the condition of numerous banks in the manu- 
facturing and mining districts. The system is evidently 
unsound, and such establishments cannot be too strongly 
urged to call up more capital. These observations are not 
intended to discountenance or throw discredit upon the 
system of re-discounting. Many banks are known to look 
upon it with apprehension, as being a system fraught with 
danger. It is well for them if they are so circumstanced 
as to realize a reasonable profit without this adventitious 



402 REVIEW OF " THE PHILOSOPHY OF," ETC. 

aid. The absurd and dangerous extent to which it is in 
some cases practiced, is what is here objected to." 

We cannot conclude, however, without saying, that, 
how hazardous soever re-discounts may be in England, 
the reliance on them is very hazardous with us. Some 
years since, one of the large banks of New-York was 
prosecuted for damages in refusing to discount for a 
country bank according to a written arrangement which it 
had previously entered into. We know, also, a country 
banker who had made, without charge, large inland collec- 
tions during two years for a New-York bank, on the con* 
dition that the country banker should obtain, when he 
desired, discounts to the extent of $20,000 ; still, when the 
discounts were demanded, a pressure existed, which in- 
duced the New- York bank to repudiate the agreement. 
These examples are quoted, not to impute any delinquency 
to the banks of New -York, but to exhibit specimens of the 
condition to which business is occasionally liable in New- 
York, (our best money market,) and the consequent hazard 
to country banks of relying for funds on re-discounts, even 
when fortified by explicit assurances. The full stomach 
loathes not the honey-comb more proverbially, than a 
struggling city bank loathes a needy country correspondent, 
who is urging his stale claims for discounts, and thereby 
attempting to add new burthens to a load which is already 
too great to be borne by the city bank without the most 
painful apprehensions. 



SCHOOLCR.VFT's thirty years with the INDIANS. 403 



REVIEW OF SCHOOLCRAFT'S " RESIDENCE OF THIRTY YEARS WITH 
THE INDIAN TRIBES ON THE AMERICAN FRONTIERS."* 

This book is inscribed to A. B. Johnson, of Utica, with 
whom, in 1810, the author made his first excursion to the 
West, preparatory to the manufacture of window-glass by 
a hundred-thousand-dollar corporation, just created by the 
New- York Legislature. Mr. Schoolcraft alone possessed 
any knowledge of glass-making, and to him, with a salary 
of a thousand dollars a year, was confided the planning of 
all necessary buildings, contracting for their erection, origi- 
nating the furnaces, procuring raw materials, governing 
the artisans, disbursing the expenditures, manufacturing 
the glass, and preparing it for market. But few manufac- 
tories of window- glass existed in the United States, and 
their absence was painfully apparent in new settlements by 
window-sashes disfigured with rude substitutes for glass. 
This state of the country caused the stock of the corpora- 
tion to be owned by patriotic citizens ; and among the most 
active and influential of the corporators was the Hon. 
John Greig, who resided in Canandaigua, and who is still 
there, the foremost citizen in all that is praiseworthy ; illus- 
trating strikingly, by his eminent social position, the scrip- 
tural promise, that *' He who watereth shall be watered 
again." 

The bank of Seneca Lake, a mile from Geneva, was se- 
lected for the new establishment. Forest timber covered 
the site ; but in about three months glass was manufactured 
for market, and a small village had been erected for the 
workmen. Mr. Schoolcraft was only seventeen years old ; 
and this reveals his early character as unmistakably as the 

* Published in 1842 



404 REVIEW OF Schoolcraft's residence of 

agricultural productions of a country reveal its climate. 
He was precocious generally, beino^ an expert draftsman, 
mature penman, with a respectable knowledge of chemistry 
and mineralogy, while ethically he was exempt from the 
irregularities which ordinarily accompany youth. We 
happened to know him intimately at this period, and these 
remarks result from that intimacy, not from the book, in 
w^hich his residence at Geneva, and its important incidents, 
are modestly referred to in a dozen words. 

The author's early expectations, and the pervading ten- 
dency of his feelings, were toward a devotion of his life to 
a sedentary cultivation of literature and science. But 
Providence " shapes our ends, rough-hew them as we may ;" 
and Schoolcraft compares more with Ledyard for activity 
than with any other American whose records have inter- 
ested the world. During thirty years he was an active 
explorer of the unsettled portions of our territory, when 
the great lakes and rivers of the West were traversed only 
by canoes. In one of these excursions he traced the 
Mississippi to its source, the source being previously deemed 
problematical; Pike, in 1806, having placed it at Leech 
Lake, and Cass, in 1820, at Red Cedar Lake. He was 
efficiently instrumental in directing public enterprise to the 
copper regions of Missouri, and in disclosing the general 
topography of the Mississippi valley, and the regions of the 
lakes. In no other book is the wonderful progress of our 
country, in population and industry, so strikingly apparent. 
We find the author conjecturing the business capabilities 
of places which, in less than twenty years thereafter, are 
populous cities ; and in the year 1830, he makes one "of 
perhaps the first party of pure pleasure, having no objects 
of business of any kind, who ever went from the upper 
lakes to visit Niagara Falls." 






THIRTY YEARS WITH THE I^'DIAN TRIBES. 405 

But the principal interest ot' the memoirs consists in 
what pertains to the Indians, among whom the author, dur- 
ing much of the thirty years, acted as agent of the United 
States. OfRcial station, and his having married a highly 
educated half-breed grand-daughter of an Indian chief of 
the vicinity, yielded him unsurpassed advantages for ascer- 
taining the habits of the Indians, their traditions, customs, 
knowledge, language, superstitions, and opinions generally. 
The whole information passes into the possession of the 
reader incidentally, rather than doctrinally ; the memoirs 
constituting a journal of what the author saw and heard, 
whereby the mass glides before the reader like the contents 
of a diorama which is being gradually unfolded, every in- 
cident introducing naturally its successor. The author 
avoids the common error of narrating only his intellectual 
reflections ; he gives you the raw, sensible materials, where- 
from every reader can make his own reflections. The raw 
material is also of a kind which is daily becoming more 
difficult to collect; the unsophisticated Indian and his an- 
tiquities, language, cusioms, and traditions being already 
defaced by time, and fading fast from existence. Nothing 
could have been more providential than the residence 
among the Indians for thirty years of such a person as 
Schoolcraft, and at such an epoch. Before his day, men 
have passed their lives among the Indians, but not like him 
have they, for thirty years, devoted a vigorous intellect 
and discriminating judgment in collecting useful informa- 
tion, with no hope of reward but to instruct contemporaries, 
and to be kindly remembered by posterity. We may well 
say, with Hamlet, '* You cannot feed capons so ;" nor can 
you feed men so, except the occasional self denying literary 
enthusiast. 

The memoirs are, however, only a highly condensed 



summary of a thirty years' daily collection of facts ; not a 
detail of items. Many of the items have already been pub- 
lished, Mr. Schoolcraft being one of our most voluminous 
authors, as well as one most widely known in Europe and 
at home. What has not been thus published, he is pre- 
paring for publication, as a great national work, under di- 
rection of the Bureau of Indian Affairs, by virtue of an 
Act of Congress, passed in March, 1847. One large lux- 
urious volume, in folio form, and elegantly illustrated by 
S. Eastman, Captain in the U. S. Navy, has just issued 
from the press, entitled, " Historical and Statistical In- 
formation respecting the History, Condition, and Philosophy 
of the Indian Tribes of the United States." The human 
intellect acquires details most readily, by first acquiring 
a knowledge of them in gross : hence the present memoirs, 
though published after many volumes of detail, ought to be 
read first; just as the journal of our late State Convention 
is an advantageous precursor to a study of the Constitution 
which the Convention formed. 

We cannot close our too brief notice of these interesting 
memoirs, the chart of a laborious life, without saying that, 
although we have known the writer favorably for more 
than forty years, our respect for him is greatly increased 
by the perusal of this book. He has consorted early and 
long with public officers, not greatly his official superiors 
originally, but now high in authority, and prospectively to 
become still higher — perhaps the highest. For the sake of 
science, for the sake of literary industry and good example, 
we trust that the eminent citizens to whom we have alluded, 
will, as a privilege of their exaltation, crown Mr. School- 
craft's latter days with some station at Washington, in the 
line to which he has devoted his life, and where his knowl- 
edge may be made available to the country in the highest 



THIRTY YEARS WITH THE INDIAN TRIBES. 407 

Station to which it is congenial. We know not that his 
feelings will respond acceptably to this suggestion, and it 
may shock his delicacy; but we are sure that "righteous- 
ness exalteth a nation," and that nothing is more righteous 
than to reward unobtrusive merit. 



w bij 



